


Oxton Airborne

by doctorate_in_realology



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Air Force, Angst, Canon Gay Character, Canon Gay Relationship, F/F, First Meetings, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Humor, Lena Oxton still loves Top Gun, Military Jargon, Original Character(s), Pre-Overwatch, Prequel, RAF - Freeform, Technobabble
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-10
Updated: 2017-09-03
Packaged: 2018-09-23 07:17:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 32,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9645974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctorate_in_realology/pseuds/doctorate_in_realology
Summary: This story depicts the events of Tracer's life and her time with the RAF, both long before and shortly after the doomed Slipstream Project.





	1. New Beginnings

**Author's Note:**

> Okay I am REALLY excited to do this one
> 
> Let me start off by saying this was largely inspired by the oh-so-talented [bzarcher](http://archiveofourown.org/users/bzarcher/pseuds/bzarcher)'s [Temporal Mechanic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9081802/chapters/20651095) fic! He's captured the characters incredibly well and writes some REALLY compelling shit. Seriously, don't even scroll down to read this garbage, just go to his fucking page and read Temporal Mechanic. Anyway, this was inspired by the RAF shenanigans Lena and Emily got up to early on in the story, and from that inspiration came this! Thank you for greasing the wheels on this big hulking gas-powered shitheap of mine, man! Keep rockin' on with the writing!
> 
> Anyway, this will EVENTUALLY involve Emily, but for right now, the first couple chapters or so will be building character on a young Lena Oxton and her squad mates. For those who read "Urban Warfare", you can probably guess who they'll be, or at least remember their names once they show up.
> 
> Finally, can I be bothered to drum up some kind of bullshit contrivance as to how this is in the same universe as Recall, Epoch and the Alt Take? PROBABLY THE FUCK NOT BECAUSE LENA DOES DATES AT AMÉLIE IN THOSE AND THIS IS GONNA BE A LENILY/EMILENA/LEMON TEA/WHATEVER THE FUCK WE'RE CALLING THEM STORY SO FUCK IT THIS IS ITS OWN THING I GUESS BECAUSE WHO GIVES HALF A SHIT ABOUT CONTINUITY HAHAHAHAHAHAHA RIGHT GUYS

_Miss Lena Oxton_

_151 Queensbrooke Avenue_

_King’s Row_

_London_

_ENGLAND_

_E11 6TE_

_Date: March 14, 2066_

_Dear Ms. Oxton,_

_I am very pleased to receive word of your graduation from Linton-on-Ouse and Valley. Your test scores are exemplary—some of the finest the RAF has ever seen, and I don’t throw praise like that around lightly. The fact that you earned your wings nearly a year earlier than the others in your unit is testament enough to your aptitude, not to mention finishing up at Valley in the same fashion._

_That’s why I’ve personally arranged for you to be stationed at Lossiemouth, and to be assigned to Squadron Six. Should you choose to accept—and I’m rather confident you will—you’ll have a flight waiting for you at Northolt. Your things will be brought over shortly thereafter, as well. I hope to see you soon, pilot. We need people like you._

_Sincerely,_

_Group Captain Ronald Graham, AFC DFC_

_RAF Lossiemouth_

Lena nearly put her head through the ceiling when she received the letter.

She relayed the words to herself over and over again in her mind, having memorized it word-for-word as she weaved her outdated—but no less functional or stylish, she maintained—Kawasaki between traffic at blistering speeds. Her excitement superseded the necessity of personal safety—contradictory to everything she’d learned in training, yes, but she simply couldn’t help herself. She was _ecstatic._

Having been granted some leave to await the necessary paperwork finalization that would determine where she would be stationed, she received word from Captain Graham telling her exactly what she wanted and needed to hear even before the date of conclusion for the filing she was waiting oh so impatiently for. The thought of a respected RAF Captain chomping at the bit to contact and inform her that he had personally requested that she join a squadron under his command thrilled and honoured her to no end.

She parked her motorcycle in the lot of Northolt Airport, in sight of the doors from which emerged a three-man escort detail clearly meant for her, evidenced by the insignias on their shoulders and the sign they held that bore her name.

An _RAF escort_ , waiting for _her,_ with a sign with _her name on it,_ about to take her to an _RAF airforce base—_

“Flight Lieutenant Oxton?”

And _Flight Lieutenant Oxton._ Ooh, she liked the sound of that.

“Could you give me that one again, mate?” she called out, extricating her aviators from the confines of her disorderly short brown hair. The man that had beckoned her cocked his head to the side and glanced to his compatriots, somewhat confused by her response.

“Flight Lieutenant Oxton,” he said, less like a question this time.

Lena grinned even wider and cupped a hand around her ear. “One more time?”

“ _Flight Lieutenant Oxton_.” Okay, that was enough—he was probably getting annoyed, and the others around him began to snicker. Still, she had a hard time getting over it all. Even despite training for it, she could hardly believe everything that was happening, and with such suddenness, too.

She approached them, smiling wider with every step. Conversely, their faces twisted in befuddlement the closer she got.

She looked like she was only sixteen years old. She was as skinny as a rail, and her fresh-off-the-press RAF pilot’s jacket was just a little too large on her, despite being the smallest size available. Her knees peered through gaps in the denim of her jeans, and her shoes were all but falling apart.

She hadn’t much time to change. Well, that wasn’t necessarily true—she probably had plenty of time, she just didn’t feel like wasting it grabbing different, equally-ratty clothes when everything she’d suffered and worked so hard for over the years was finally bearing fruit, so she resorted to haphazardly tossing her dress blues into her bag before hauling ass to Northolt.

“Sorry, chaps,” she said as she neared them. “Just really, _really_ like the sound of that. ‘Flight Lieutenant Oxton’,” she said in earnest wonderment. “Ought to get that embroidered on something, eh?”

“That sounds like an excellent idea, ma’am,” one of the men responded, having just recovered from tittering at his partner.

Genuine surprise twisted Lena’s features. “‘Ma’am’?”

“Yes, ma’am,” came the response, as serious as the first. “We’re your security detail. As of right now, you are our commanding officer for the time being.”

Such decorum seemed so alien to her. When it was directed at her, at least. Fresh out of training and already she had men referring to her as “ma’am” and asking for orders? Barmy, is what it was. She would have none of it.

“Woah, woah, pump the brakes, lads,” she said, throwing her hands up in placation. “Just call me Lena. No formalities or nothing, let’s just be mates.”

“With all due respect, that’s technically insubordinate behaviour, ma’am.”

Lena cleared her throat, puffed out her chest, and locked her hands together at the base of her back, standing so straight she was nearly bending backwards. “As your commanding officer, I order you to henceforth refer to me as an equal, and nothing more, so long as you’re comfortable doing so.” She seceded from her mock-seriousness and clapped her hands together, grinning brightly as she did. “See? No more insubordination! Right from the chain of command!”

The men’s postures slackened slightly, more out of confusion than ease. “Whatever you say, m—Lena.”

“Like we’re chums already!” she shouted. “Let’s hit the trail, shall we? Oh, right, one more thing—” She pointed a thumb over her shoulder. “What about my bike? Can I have that flown over, too?”

“Captain Graham made the arrangements for that as well. Everything is squared away.”

Lena’s jaw dropped as impressed, excited laughter arose from her. “Oh, that is absolutely _top._ ” She turned back to the trio of men. “Can I get your names?”

“Jamie,” the leftmost man said with a smile. “Pleasure to meet you.”

“I’m Henry,” said the one in the centre before gesturing to his left. “This is Paul.”

“Nice to meet you, Lena.”

She laughed aloud. “Look at that; peas in a pod, loves. Peas in a pod.” She clapped Henry and Jamie on their shoulders as she walked between them and entered the airport, springing with every step.

“ _That’s_ Lena Oxton?” Henry whispered to his cohorts as Lena disappeared within the structure. “Every RAF officer and their nan are flipping their lids about _her_?”

“What’s wrong with her?” Jamie shot back. “I quite like her already. She’s a cute kid, lots of charisma.”

“That’s exactly it, Jamie. She’s a _kid_.”

“Don’t be a twat.”

“No, no, I’m not taking the piss out of her, I’m just… surprised. Can’t be more than sixteen.”

“Then how’s she got a motorcycle?”

They turned in unison to the vehicle in question, cocking a collective eyebrow in thought.

“How _has_ she got a motorcycle?”

“Gotta be seventeen, then, at least,” Paul concluded.

“Oi!” Lena called from inside the building. “Something wrong?”

“No, no, ma’am—Lena, sorry. We’re right behind you.”

They joined her in the airport, leading her to the terminal at which was docked their jet. To Lena’s surprise, it was a first-class flight, all expenses paid.

This was quickly shaping up to be the best day of her life.

“This is _wicked,”_ she whispered in astonishment. She turned to the men behind her. “Captain Graham arranged _all_ _of this_?”

“Down to every last detail,” Paul replied. “The Cap’s got a lot of faith in you, Lena.”

She nearly fainted, still incredulous of what was playing out before her eyes. Still incredulous that it had all been worth it.

Resisting the impulse to fall to the floor with exultant laughter, she resolved to maintain at least _some_ professionalism in front of the men.

“Well I won’t let him down, then!” she assured. “C’mon, let’s get in the air!”

She launched herself up the stairs leading to the jet, flinging into the cabin. Henry, Jamie and Paul heard her shouting in awe from outside as she was inundated with fineries that were completely foreign to her, and shared a laugh.

“I like her already,” Paul said.

“I do too,” Henry agreed. “Very… gregarious.”

“Ooh, four syllables! That a record for you?”

“Sod it.”

They entered behind Lena, finding that she’d made herself plenty at home in the short time she was left alone. Her bag had been tossed onto a seat two rows down from her, and she’d retrieved a platter of food consisting of two twelve-ounce steaks and a pint of Guinness. She promptly dug into the meal, presumably famished judging by how quickly she began to devour it all.

“Are you… old enough to be drinking?” Henry asked.

She looked at him with humoured confusion. She waved her fork through the air for emphasis, a cube of steak speared on its tines. “Old enough to fly planes and drive motorcycles, aren’t I?”

“Yes, but, you don’t look older than sixteen. Pardon me for saying, it’s just surprising.”

“Oh, I get that all the time, no worries,” she said taking a pull of her drink. “Yeah, I’m eighteen. Just small.”

“Dunno how, if that’s the way you eat,” Jamie chimed in with a laugh.

“Metabolism like a leopard, my friend,” she said, smiling as she chewed.

The men laughed again and took their seats as the plane readied for takeoff, thankfully convinced by her answer.

Well, technically, in these circumstances, she _was_ old enough to drink, so she wasn’t _actually_ breaking any laws. It was accompanied by a meal and under adult supervision—it just so happened that she didn’t know the supervising parties terribly well yet.

It wasn’t the first time she’d lied about her age, either. When she applied to the RAF, she was only fourteen; a year under the minimum age for application. She had to forge a parent’s signature, too. She considered it a miracle that she even got considered, let alone accepted.

Then again with her license. Funny enough, that one required more subterfuge than her RAF application. Growing up among the shady denizens of King’s Row had its perks, however. Perks like the creation of fake IDs for a nominal fee. Perks like having an crack engineer as a friend who could rig a necklace with tech that could project a distortive electromagnetic refraction field, effectively altering her face to appear as if she was of age so long as she didn’t get jostled around too much and the security measures in whatever place she was going didn’t have the proper subroutines to detect the workaround. Perks she had been lucky to capitalize on.

Henry confirmed with air traffic control that they were cleared for takeoff. After receiving the go-ahead, he eased the jet down the runway and lifted the nose from the tarmac.

Just like that, they were off, and Lena was on her way to the kind of place she’d dreamt of going since she was a little girl.

 

*******

“ATC, this is November seven one four, requesting permission to land.

_“November seven one four, ATC—you are clear for landing on runway one nine.”_

“Copy. Setting down on runway one nine.”

Lena was nearly bouncing in her seat as Henry confirmed their touchdown with the tower. She would have to make a conscious effort to try and stymie her giddiness if she wanted to make a good first impression but it was just so _damn_ hard.

In time, the jet was brought to a halt and the stairs descended against the runway for its occupants to disembark. Lena gave a firm handshake and a snappy salute to her escort, who’d turned out to be great mates, before taking her leave with their direction. She was to report to the Base Commander’s office immediately and meet Group Captain Graham.

Her excitement quickly turned to nervousness as she neared Graham’s office. She wasn’t going to be face-to-face with instructors anymore. This was the real deal. _He_ was the real deal, and he was no doubt expecting a great deal from her.

She fretted incessantly. Was her uniform wrinkled? Was her hat on straight? Was her _head_ on straight? Her shoes shined, her tie tight and proper, her cuffs the proper length? Was she sweating like a nun in a brothel?

“‘Nun in a brothel’,” laughed a gruff voice from beyond the door. “I like that one.”

_Oh, god, please don’t tell me I actually said that out loud…_

She’d spent so much time worrying that she’d hardly noticed she was standing right in front of Graham’s office door. Well within earshot, as well.

_Off to a rollicking good start, Lena, just bloody fantastic._

“Come in,” came Graham’s voice again.

Lena opened the door with lightning speed, taking caution not to nervously slam it behind her before snapping a crisp salute.

“Sir, Flight Lieutenant Lena Oxton reporting, sir!”

“Ah, Oxton!” he said, his intense features alighting with a grin. He had hair as grey as steel, and his face was weathered and foreboding. “Glad you made it. At ease. Please, have a seat.”

She nodded silently, sitting ramrod stiff in the chair that was offered to her.

“I said at ease, Lieutenant.”

“R-Right, right, sorry, sir,” she stammered, startled by his powerful voice.

He growled a laugh and pulled a cigar from his desk drawer. “I know you’re nervous. Take a moment to collect your thoughts, Oxton. Take a deep breath and calm yourself.”

She heeded his instructions, a smile tugging at the corner of her lips. He was very intense; a man of conviction, but she could see that he was a swell, pleasant fellow when he wanted to be. Lena liked him already.

Well, she liked him when he offered her a position in Squadron Six when she was less than a month out of Valley and had her brought in by way of a first-class flight, but still.

“I wanted to talk to you about Squadron Six,” he began after Lena had stopped shaking in her shoes. “And about your test scores at Linton-on-Ouse and Valley. Are you using performance-enhancing drugs, Lieutenant?”

“No!” she blurted out. “I mean—no, sir, never! I’d never want to jeopardize my—”

“For god’s sake, Oxton, I’m joking,” he shouted. “I told you to calm down. I’ve been keeping tabs on you and you’re the best bloody pilot I’ve seen in _very_ long time. Word spread like wildfire about the young hotshot upstart who could fly anything from remote control planes to gunships and there’s a reason for that.”

The compliment, despite its stentorian delivery, bolstered her resolve. Her face lit up, and a smile broadened across her lips.

“Thank you, sir, that really means a lot to me.”

“It bloody well should, because it means a lot to everyone else, too.” He puffed on his cigar, breathing tails of blue smoke against the ceiling. “There are a lot of eyes on you, Oxton, I won’t lie. The expectations are high, but I wouldn’t have arranged for you to come here if I didn’t think you could meet _and_ exceed them.”

He returned to his seat behind his desk and reclined. “Now, we’ll have ourselves a chat about your training and what’s expected of you here, and then you’ll meet your squad mates. Does that sound like a plan?”

She nodded. “It does, sir, yes.”

For what felt like hours—maybe Graham just had that effect on people, or maybe they really had clocked that much time talking in his office—they conversed about her experiences leading up to where she currently sat. He told her they would be running test flights of bleeding edge fighters and airships, combat simulations, strike missions, mockup airframe evaluation and acceptance trials—the full monty, and chances are that she’d be leading the helm on every one of them.

“I know this is a lot to take in, Lieutenant,” Graham said after it was all out in the air, “but like I said, if anyone is capable of cleaning this much off their plate, it’s you, judging by your reputation.”

“Honestly, sir?” she began. “I’m actually relieved this is what I’m being assigned. I was sort of nervous that I wouldn’t be given enough to do.”

He shot an eyebrow up across his forehead, staring her down with a gaze that felt like it was accusing her of taking the piss, before grumbling with laughter.

“That’s what I like to hear,” He stood from his seat and held open the door of his office, ushering Lena outside. “Now come on, let’s go meet your squad mates.”

“Just… one more thing, sir? Permission to speak freely?”

“Granted.”

She smiled, and launched herself at Graham, wrapping her arms around him.

“Thank you, sir,” she whispered. “For the opportunity. For all of this. It sounds melodramatic, but it really is a dream come true for me. Thank you.”

He was admittedly surprised by the affectionate ambush, but he could waive the breaking of regulation for once. She was just a kid.

He gave her an encouraging pat on the back. “Wouldn’t have given it to you if you didn’t earn it, Lieutenant. Now let’s get your bony ass down to Hangar Bay Nine so we can move on with the day,” he finished with a friendly wink.

She smiled again, and snapped a clean-cut salute. “Yes, sir!”

As Lena walked side-by-side with Captain Graham on their way to her new squadron, she couldn’t stop thinking about how every dream she had since she was little was coming to fruition. And how much she was going to like it here.


	2. First Impressions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A fellow pilot takes issue with Lena after their first meeting, and decides that Captain Graham should be made aware of his concerns; Lena and her new team carry out her first exercise at Lossiemouth.

“Captain on deck!”

The trio of pilots snapped straight and saluted the approaching Captain Graham, joined by their new blood; a scrawny young girl, a head and a half shorter than the officer at her side.

Graham returned the salute, as did Lena out of respect. “At ease,” he said, relieving them of the formality. “Gentlemen, I’d like to introduce you to your new squad mate—the celebrated new Flight Lieutenant, Lena Oxton.”

“Oxton?” one of them echoed. “The one that everyone in the RAF’s been waggin’ their chins about?”

“The very same,” Graham confirmed.

“I’ve seen more meat on Wes’s dinner plates,” another chimed in, jabbing a thumb at his apparently-ravenous companion. He was a dark-skinned man with a patchy, short, black beard separated by bright white rows of teeth. “What were they feeding you at Valley, stale crackers and dishwater?”

“What were they feeding _you_ , steroids and horse tranquilizers, ya neckless git?” she fired back with a devilish grin.

The man on the receiving end of the derision tossed his head back in laughter, joined similarly by the others. “Quick on the draw, she is! Got a feeling you’ll fit in here just fine.” He approached her and extended his hand. “Name’s Davis Hill. My friends call me Pilsner. That there’s Aaron MacGillvary, and William Wesley O’Keefe. Gilly and Wes, respectively.”

“Cheers.”

“Howdy.”

She gave a wave and a smile, and turned back to Captain Graham.

“These are the men you’ll be flying with,” he said. “Terrific pilots, the lot of them, so you ought to fit in quite nicely with them. You’ll need to be well acquainted, so chop-chop. I’ll leave you to it.”

“Sir,” she said with a salute. Davis, Aaron and William saluted in turn, and Graham returned the gesture before turning on his heel and leaving the pilots to their own devices.

“So,” William began with a thick Irish brogue, running a hand over his regulation-length brick red hair. “You’re Lena Oxton.”

“Last time I checked, yeah,” she said.

“…Thought you’d be taller.”

She shrugged indifferently, cracking another smile. “Sorry to disappoint, I guess.”

“And that you’d be older,” Aaron interjected, skepticism lining his voice. “You can’t be any more than sixteen.”

Davis elbowed him in the ribs, a sneering grin on his face. “Don’t you know it's impolite to ask a girl’s age?”

“I’m just saying,” Aaron responded defensively. “Seems odd that we’ve all got at least five years on you, what with you bein’ the new mascot of the RAF and all.”

“Relax, Aaron, I’m eighteen,” Lena replied with a laugh. In trying to be polite, it seemed her refrainment from using “Gilly” had been mistaken for condescension; Aaron seemed to resent that she’d called him by his name. Perhaps he’d mistaken her tone? Maybe she’d sounded disparaging by accident?

Either way, they were off on the wrong foot, and the last thing she wanted was tension between her and her new mates.

“Sorry, do you prefer Gilly?”

“Aaron’s fine, for now,” he responded all too quickly, clearly meaning that “Aaron” was acceptable in the place of “Gilly” if it was coming from _her_ mouth.

_Great. Been in the same room as them for all of three minutes and already one of ‘em’s miffed with me._

“Listen, I really want to get along with you guys,” she said. “Maybe we could start over? Have things go over a little bit smoother?” She approached Aaron and offered a handshake. “Name’s Lena Oxton. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

He glanced at the hand offered to him and shook it, his expression hollow.

“Aaron,” he dryly replied.

Lena masked her vexation easily, offering a bright smile in its place. She turned to Davis and William. “Do you guys mind giving me the rundown on our kites? Want to get a feel for what I’ll be flying.”

“Sure thing,” Davis cheerily agreed. “Wes, run diagnostics with her, will you? I’ll be there in a jiffy.”

“Sure.” William hopped from his perch on the workbench and patted Lena on the shoulder. “Off we go, love. Let’s get you up to speed.”

The two began on a walk to the nearest airframe—a Eurofighter Typhoon FGR6 on the opposite end of the hangar. They were already stirring laughs from one another by the time half of the hangar was behind them, audible from where Davis and Aaron stood. At least _they_ were getting along well.

“Care to tell me what crawled up your bum and died?” Davis whispered as he turned to Aaron. “She’s new and she knows what she’s doing. Why are you acting pissy?”

“We haven’t even seen her fly yet,” Aaron fired back. “How d’you know she knows what she’s doing?”

“You think Graham would have gone through all the trouble of personally having her brought in if she didn’t? Or that the RAF’s biting off arms about her for a laugh?”

“She’s overconfident. All this fame’s gone to her head and she’s too young to rein it in when she’ll need to. And I don’t buy for a second that she’s eighteen. Biggest shiteload I’ve heard in my life. If you ask me, she’s lying through her teeth about her age.”

“Oh, you’re full of it,” Davis dismissed. “We’ll all work together better if you two get along, so pull the stick out of your arse and make nice.”

Davis took his leave of the ornery Aaron MacGillvary, joining Lena and William by the Typhoon. Lena was in the cockpit familiarizing herself with the control panels and interfaces with intrinsic ease, seldom asking for direction from William, much to his impression.

Aaron looked on bitterly, scrutinizing the new recruit.

His instincts told him she was hiding something. Pilsner and Wes were too damn amiable for their own good, they’d never see it unless it hit them in the face. All it took was a passing glance to see that she was lying about how old she was. Why would she lie? What reason would she have?

And who the hell was _she_ to act all haughty and condescending? ‘Relax, Aaron, I’m eighteen.’ Cocky little lass may as well have told him to shove it.

He decided that Captain Graham should hear of his qualms.

He left the hangar and approached the Captain’s office. He rapped his knuckles on the door, and was welcomed inside by a gruff “It’s open.”

He stepped inside and gave a brisk salute.

“At ease, Flight Lieutenant.”

“Thank you for seeing me, sir,” Aaron began. “I was wondering if you had some spare time to talk about Lieutenant Oxton.”

“What about her?”

Aaron sighed, deciding bluntness would be the best course of action. “Forgive the candidness, sir, but from first impressions, she seems cocky and brash. Overconfidence is dangerous—it seems to me that the spotlight’s she’s been under has gone to her head. And most importantly, something in my gut tells me she’s hiding something. Sir.”

Graham eyed Aaron up and down, his gaze analytical and harsh. He set his cigar down in the ashtray on his desk and leaned against the back of his chair.

“And what is it you suppose she’s hiding, MacGillvary?”

“It seems to me that she’s lying about her age. She seems too young to be eighteen. What reason would she have to fake part of her identity?”

“And you don’t think that perhaps she’s just a tiny thing? All her paperwork checks out.”

“I’m just going by instinct, sir. There’s something about her that rubs me the wrong way.”

“So you thought you’d come and complain about her when you’ve known her for all of five minutes?” Graham’s voice was leaden with reprehension. “You’re in the air force, pilot, not grade school. I didn’t go through all the trouble of getting her here on a whim.”

“I know, sir, I—I’ve come to trust my gut over the years. Hasn’t led me wrong since.”

Graham shot him his withering gaze. After a moment’s silence, he heaved a sigh.

“I will have another look at her file and call some of the lads at Cranwell about her record, if that will _please_ you. But if everything checks out, I’ll put you to sweeping the hangar floor for the next week, do you understand?”

“Yes sir,” Aaron said with a curt nod. “Fully.”

“Good. Dismissed.”

 

*******

 

Lena coasted through the skies above Moray, Scotland, with William in the seat behind her. Tension and excitement mixed and mingled into a potent nerve-wracking cocktail; Lena was carrying out her first exercise since joining Squadron Six last month.

“I’ve got radar contact on Pilsner’s and Gilly’s kite,” William said. “Five hundred knots closure at bearing zero-eight-seven. Drop to angels ten and close in on ‘em.”

“Roger,” Lena replied. “Canine One, this is Canine Two. Send out your drogue and we’ll initiate the refuel.”

 _“Copy, Canine Two,”_ came Davis’s voice through their headsets. _“Drogue is ready and waiting.”_

Lena brought up the rear of Canine One and initiated the sequence for the refueling mechanism—the crux of their current exercise.

BAE Systems had developed a prototype refueling probe for their Typhoons capable of refueling aircraft at speeds upwards of four hundred and fifty miles an hour. They were almost completely unmanned, needing only to have speed, flight vectors and recipient coordinates locked in before projecting the fuel line, thereby obviating the need for boom operators. It wasn’t as if there was much room for them in small fighter aircraft anyway, but if the prototype proved successful, BAE could adjust it accordingly to fit it to larger craft.

Which was exactly what Squadron Six was trying to determine—if the probe was to be a fantastic success, or a horrendous technological failure.

Lena punched in the flight vectors of both aircraft, the coordinates of Canine One’s drogue relative to her and William, and their airspeed. All that was left to do was launch it and wait.

“Launching fuel line,” she announced. “Keep ‘er steady, Pilsner.”

 _“Aye aye, ma’am,”_ he said through a smile, his salute visible to Lena from her cockpit to his.

“Status?” William asked. “Has the nozzle mated with the drogue yet?”

 _“Don’t say ‘mate’, mate. The planes aren’t fuckin’,”_ Aaron said.

“Just a poke, love, don’t be a stranger.”

Laughter hummed in their ears, along with Lena’s own as she eavesdropped on the lewd conversation. The prototype was working like a charm—things were green across the board.

“How’s your fuel, Canine One?” she asked. “Still running on fumes or are we ready to head home?”

_“I’d say we’re good to—hold on…”_

“Status?”

Aaron’s voice came next over the radio. _“Radar contact. Eight bogeys, dead ahead of us and up high. Nine hundred knots closure.”_

Lena looked up through the domed windshield of her Typhoon to see eight black dots materializing on her display, hurtling through the air towards them. It seemed Graham enjoyed throwing spanners in the works of these exercises, Lena determined.

“What kind of fighters are we looking at, Aaron?” Lena asked.

_“Judging by the silhouettes, I’d say Harpies.”_

“Crisis-era Omnic fighters, then. Understood.”

The Harpies descended and encircled the Typhoons, characteristic of the creature after which they were christened. Canine One and Two had become sitting ducks, still tethered to one another by the fuel line.

 _“Well this is rather disconcerting, innit?”_ Davis said.

_“We better get a move on if we don’t want this whole mission scrubbed.”_

“Roger, disengaging the fuel line.” Lena turned her head to William, concocting a plan. “Wes, turn off the firing solution plotter. You too, Aaron.”

“What? Why?”

_“Care to enlighten us?”_

“Their point defense subroutines are well-designed enough to determine likelihoods of missile speeds, trajectories and probability of contact before we’re even fully locked. Pretty hard for them to track manual autocannon fire, though.”

A brief pause.

_“Huh.”_

“Fuckin’ right, ‘huh’. Are they teaching this at Valley, now?”

“No, I just read more than the lot of you combined,” she chided endearingly.

 _“The young gun’s got a hair trigger, hasn’t she?!”_ Davis shouted amidst laughter. _“Alright, Oxton, show us how it’s done, then!”_

“I was starting to think you'd never ask!”

They waited for the opportune moment to make their move, the Harpies flying in formation around them.

A beat.

Then another.

Then another.

And another, until…

“Break!”

The Typhoons diverged and engaged their foes. Two Harpies immediately alighted into balls of flame before dissipating into pixelated dust, and the others gave chase to their agile, outnumbered prey. Things soon spiraled into a deadly dogfight, fighters buzzing the sky like fireflies.

Lena tailed the enemy jets with dogged persistence, not letting them leave the centre pane of the windshield for any longer than a second. William had never made easier shots.

“Keep it up, kiddo, you’re doin’ terrific!” he shouted.

The breathing mask of Lena’s flight helmet hid her absurdly-wide smile from the light of day. It was a wonder the thing didn’t burst off her face with how hard she was grinning.

If there was a time to show what she was made of, it was now.

 _“Canine Two, we need some assistance here!”_ Davis said. _“We’ve got bandits on our tail that we can’t shake!”_

“Copy, coming in hot,” Lena said. “Better clench up back there, Wes!”

Before a witty and most likely vulgar rejoinder could be made, Lena punched the reverse thrusters and arched their fighter up and over the Harpy behind them. She rolled upright and closed in on Canine One’s trailer, lining up the reticule for William. The autocannons spat fire and brass, and the Omnic on the business end of the volley cracked apart and was swallowed by flame.

“Got ‘im!” Lena shouted triumphantly.

The team made short, systematic work of their digital burdens. Before long, they were the only planes left on the radar, and were homeward bound to Lossiemouth airfield.

Cleared for landing, they guided the planes down the runway and taxied them into the hangar, handing their flight helmets to the team of technicians as they disembarked amidst praise and cheering.

William threw his arm around Lena’s neck and yanked her into a headlock as they walked the hangar bay floor, calling attention to her prowess with enthusiastic pointing and bellowing expletives.

“Everybody see this fuckin’ kid?! I _love_ this fuckin’ kid!”

Lena blushed madly, giggling near-uncontrollably as she tried to pry an exuberant Irishman who was completely unaware of his own strength from her neck.

“Who else saw that Kulbit stunt?! She pulls up hard and lines me up a perfect shot on the inverse, and the scrawny little fucker’s calmer’n a monk on morphine the whole time!”

The mechanics swarmed to hear the story and to congratulate Lena for the feat, doubly impressed that such a deed had transpired during her first time in the air over Lossiemouth.

One of the techs shouted over the commotion, however, commanding silence.

“Look alive lads! Officer on deck!”

The crowd turned and saluted in unison. Graham was approaching fast, with wide, determined strides and his head slightly bowed.

He scanned the congregation. “Flight Lieutenant Oxton, front and centre.”

She abided, emerging from the mass and standing at attention. “Sir!”

His response blindsided her.

“My office,” he growled. _“Now.”_

Just about everyone in the room had expected an applause. A commendation directed at Lena for her success during the exercise. Graham was hard to please, but even _he_ had to admit that Lena had exceeded expectations.

Or so they thought. Instead, his order hung in the room like a deafening miasma well after he had left.

Whatever he wanted, he wasn’t pleased, that much was certain, and it shot chills up Lena’s spine. Was it about the Kulbit? Disabling the firing solutions? Risky moves, of course, but they paid off, and she knew to weigh the variables each and every time. She knew what to do, when and when _not_ to do it, the potential gains and losses… Captain Graham, of all people, would see that, wouldn’t he?

This was about something different. Something completely unknown to Lena, which frightened her only more.

She shot glances to William, to Davis and Aaron, her eyes asking what she could have done to get under his collar.

“I’ll walk with you,” William said, suddenly sullen and reserved. He was as confused as she was, but the least he could do was try to alleviate the tension some.

They neared the door of Graham’s office, its old wooden façade, bronze hinges and reinforced glass window far more foreboding than any enemy fighter.

“Keep your cool, kiddo,” William eased. “Dunno what he’s peeved about, but I’ll be millin’ around the base if y’need me afterwards.”

She nodded, breathing a sigh. “Thanks, Wes.” He gave her shoulder a light, friendly slug before departing. Lena waited for his footsteps to fade from earshot before opening the door, closing it quietly behind her. Graham was standing with his back to the entrance.

“You… wanted to see me, sir?” she asked sheepishly.

He slowly came about-face, a cigar smoked right down to the stub pinched between his teeth and a file folder in his hand. Eyes locked with Lena’s, he flicked open the folder, retrieved a small bundle of papers, and threw it onto his desk with a _wh_ _ap._

He jabbed a finger at the signature bordering the bottom of the paper. “You have _three seconds,_ Oxton, to tell me what _that_ is before I have you court martialed.”


	3. Under the Gun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena explains herself to Captain Graham; snapshots of Lena's life leading up to her enlistment in the RAF are shown; an embedded journalist is assigned to Squadron Six and arrives at Lossiemouth Airfield.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 3, complete with tragic backstory, flashbacks, and Lena being completely inept at talking to pretty girls! What a rollercoaster.
> 
> This guy's a lengthy one. I'm uploading this right after finishing it so I might make tiny touch-ups here and there but for now I'm too excited to update this. MAN I GOT IDEAS FOR WHERE THIS THING IS GOING YOU GUYS'LL FUCKIN' DIG IT SUPER HARD I SWEAR

Panic seized every muscle in Lena’s body when her eyes met the document on the Captain’s desk. She immediately recognized the seal scrawled on its bottom border, in the space marked “Applicant’s signature”.

The file Graham had thrown before her was _her_ file. The application booklet was the one she had filled out when trying to get accepted to the RAF two years ago.

The signature was hers. The _forged_ signature was hers. Well, not hers specifically, but a phony nonetheless. One that had finally come back to bite her.

“It’s…” She took a deep breath, recognizing the futility in persisting that it was anything other than fraudulent, but lapsing in her judgement enough to be unable to stop herself from trying. “My dad’s signature.”

“Oh?” Graham cocked his head to the side, feigning benign inquisitiveness. “Then would you care to explain _this_ to me as well?”

Another piece of evidence smacked the surface of the desk. A holotablet displaying a newspaper, the publication several years old and with names in the obituaries demarcated by red marking for her ease of reading.

_ Tom and Gladys Oxton _

Lena’s face went several shades whiter. Her breath froze in her lungs.

“Is there anything else that you’ve neglected to mention?” Graham seethed.

She opened her mouth to speak, but lost her resolve. She fell silent, choking on her own words.

“ _Oxton.”_

“I-I’m not eighteen,” she admitted as she jumped at the harshness of his voice. “I’m only sixteen.”

“So that means you applied to the RAF when you were only fourteen. With a forged signature. _And_ got accepted through subterfuge and falsified documentation.”

“Yes sir.”

“And that motorcycle of yours—you’re not even old enough to drive it.”

“…Yes sir.”

“Do you have _any_ idea of the gravity of this?” he hissed. “I could very well see to it that you are dishonourably discharged and unable to set foot in a cockpit for the rest of your life.”

She nodded silently, her head hanging low and tears stinging fiercely behind her eyes.

“I am going to be _very_ generous and allow you a chance to explain yourself,” he went on, glaring through his eyebrows at Lena. “I swear on Her Majesty’s left tit, if it isn’t the best bloody reasoning ever to grace my ears, you will be off this airfield like shit through the eye of a needle. Now _sit.”_

She heeded his command and fell into the chair, still unable to meet his eyes. Her own glistened as she fought a three-fronted war against her own shame, grief, and fear.

She took a deep, steadying breath, and began.

 

*******

Rioters screamed in the streets. Glass shattered and rained shimmering fragments onto the sidewalk. Sirens howled in the distance, growing louder and louder as they approached the roaring assembly of flesh and metal.

Lena sat huddled inside her house, curled up in the corner of her couch. She could hear them outside in the distance, and heard it all again, duplicated by the news reports on the television. She sat there waiting, arms curled around her legs and pleading for Mum and Dad to get home.

They’d gone out to pick up a few groceries and told her they would be back before she knew it. They hadn’t come back yet, and Lena’s mind had begun to jump to every possible dire conclusion and deny them just as quickly.

The riots had become commonplace, but she was no less frightened of them for it. People hurting each other and breaking things, killing each other and destroying things—it was all such senseless belligerence.

Where were her parents? She was worried. She was afraid and she wanted Mum and Dad.

They would be back before she knew it. They would be back before she knew it.

She turned her attention to the news, peering over her knees at the carnage on the screen. People were throwing bottles full of fire at buildings, at cars, at _other people._ Why? What would it solve? What would it fix?

The screen switched to a helicopter camera. A light grey car was shown slowly splitting the crowd down the middle, trying to get where, she wondered?

Wait… That was…

That was their car. Mum and Dad’s. They were trying to get home.

They were forced to stop as people stood in front of the vehicle, smacking their hands on the hood. She could faintly hear the horn honking over the sounds of shouting, coming from the speakers.

The rioters flung the doors open and pulled the occupants from the car out onto the street. They were swarmed, set upon by dozens.

Lena launched from the couch and turned the TV off. She wanted to smash it. She wanted to pull it off the wall and stomp it into the floor for lying to her about her parents, but she couldn’t—when Mum and Dad got home, they would be mad at her for breaking it.

They _would_ be coming home. That wasn’t them on the news. They were on their way. They would be back before she knew it.

They would be back before she knew it. They would be back before she knew it. They would be back…

 

*******

“That’s the girl whose parents were killed in the riot?”

“Yeah. Name’s Lena, I think.”

“How old is she?”

“Six.”

“Christ almighty… Poor thing must be distraught. Does she have any other family in London?”

“An uncle, but he isn’t fit to take care of her. We looked him up—he’s an alcoholic.”

“She’ll have to stay here, then. Do we have any spare beds for her?”

“Plenty. She’ll have the best care we can provide for her.”

Whatever that entailed, Lena would never find out. She fled the McGavin Orphanage that very same night.

 

*******

 

“Oi, that’s mine, dickhead!”

The book thief continued down the hallway, throwing up his arm and offering a crude gesture with his hand instead of a response.

Lena huffed and shook her head. Striding purposefully and overtaking the smarmy little larcenist, she swiped the book from his paws. She could hear him chuckling to his friends, a shit-eating grin no doubt parting his boorish features.

Lena examined the book for vandalism. Its blue, gold-trimmed cover seemed untouched, thankfully. However, several of the pages had been folded inwards and creased, many of which had been torn.

She heaved another sigh and turned to face him. “Up yours, you fucking arsehole.”

“What’re you going to do about it, tell your parents?” he laughed. “Not bleedin’ likely.”

 _That_ egregious mistake of his was what found Lena was in the principal’s quarters.

The principal, Mr. Wells, donned his glasses and examined Lena’s book, sitting across the table from her.

“‘ _RAF: An Illustrated History from 1918’,_ by Roy Conyers Nesbit,” he said, reading the title and its author’s name with blatant displeasure. “You repeatedly slammed another student’s head with a locker door over an outdated book on the military?”

One that Lena bought instead of food one day with her own hard-earned money. She remained silent, shoulders hunched and arms crossed.

“This seems like a lot of trouble to go through for such a comparably-tiny infraction,” he persisted.

“It’s _mine,”_ Lena growled. “The stupid pillock took it and damaged it.”

“I understand that, but that doesn’t give you the right to resort to violence.”

“Why isn’t he in here, too? He’s the one picked the fight.”

“Because he’s in an _ambulance,_ Lena,” Wells disdained. “Shoving him I could understand, but you put him in the hospital. Over a _book_.”

She closed her eyes and sighed. She gave her head a solemn shake as she began to stare at the hideous carpeted floor.

“It was about more than just the book…”

 

*******

Lena swept through a door into an unorganized, chaotic workshop. Everything from spanners to old carburetors to improvised EM drives littered the floor, cluttered the workbenches, and hung from the ceiling.

“Ozzy, you in here?” she called out.

She was startled by a loud metallic _thud_ , followed swiftly by an expression of pain laden with expletives. A metal arm shot out from behind a beastly machine and waved through the air.

“Over here!”

Lena chuckled and approached the eccentric engineer, letting her bag fall where it may. He carefully disentangled himself from the innards of his current undertaking, taking a rag from the floor with his prosthetic and wiping his hands. His bright blonde hair was slicked back with grease and hidden beneath a black, hole-ridden beanie.

“Oi oi saveloy, my friend!” he greeted with a bright smile, cutting a swath through the streaks of grease and oil staining his cheeks. “How’s the day?”

“Hunky-dory,” she said, offering a radiant grin of her own. She gestured to the hatch from which he’d crawled. “How about you? How’s she coming along?”

She should have learned not to ask Ozzy such things in the interest of time, but she simply couldn’t help it. Watching him light up with glee whenever he was able to talk about his projects, his inventions, even about the last thing he ate could probably cheer up the gloomiest curmudgeon in the world. It was fair to say he was one of her biggest inspirations.

“—so I’ve got the coupling for the hydraulics all hooked up, but it’ll be a few more days before I’ve got ‘er strutting about the shop.” He turned once again to Lena and smiled. “But look at me now, talking your ear off! What about you, what’ve you been up to today?”

He plunked down onto a stool and placed his chin in his hands, leaning forward to indicate that Lena had his undivided attention.

She breathed a laugh at him and his unerringly chipper disposition. “What I’ve been up to is thinking. Thinking a _lot_ , and… I think it’s time.”

He raised his head from his knuckles, eyes widening in stupefaction. “Really?”

“Yeah. I’m ready.”

A grin wide enough to split his head in half crept across his face, and he launched from his seat at Lena with a cheer, lifting her from hers.

“I get to be your pop for a day?!”

“Bloody right, you do!” she strained through his vice-grip. “Well, pretend to, but sure!”

He belted out laughter and spun her around the shop, taking care not to trip over any of the multitudinous spare parts he had strewn about the floor. He set her down after a few pirouettes and placed his hands on her shoulders.

“You’re absolutely sure?” he asked.

Lena nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, definitely.”

Ozzy laughed once again. “Well then, let’s leg it over to the recruitment office pronto! We’re getting you in the air as soon as we can!”

He made haste for the door, but Lena called for him to halt. “Ozzy, wait a sec!”

She caught up to him, hoping he wouldn’t just snap from the anticipation and bolt again.

“Are you sure _you’re_ ready for this?” she asked, suddenly serious. “This is all kinds of illegal, what we’re planning on doing. My application, my file—they’re gonna have porkies left, right and centre _._ If we get figured out, you’ll be in prison within the hour.”

“Most things worth doing aren’t easy, dove,” Ozzy said. “And this is _definitely_ worth doing. For as long as I’ve known you, you’ve wanted this. Bein’ a pilot’s your dream, and no prison sentence of mine is gonna stand in the way of that.”

Lena felt a lump rise in her throat. She wrapped her arms tightly around Ozzy in a thankful and loving hug.

“Thank you, Oz,” she whispered. “This really means a lot.”

He must have felt her tears stain his shirt—she didn’t know how, because it was stained to the point of illegibility already—as he parted from her and knelt down, bringing a finger to her cheek to wipe them away.

“No tears, dove. Don’t be scared for me—you were meant for this. What do I always say?”

Lena sniffled, and smiled as she recalled his adage. “‘Fear and misery are nothin’ but self-fulfilling prophecy, so meet every challenge with a smile.’”

“That’s right,” he affirmed. “So how’s about you an’ I head down to the recruitment office grinning like a pair of fools?”

“Might want to neaten up a bit first,” she laughed.

“What? Don’t think I look sharp already? The ‘disheveled, grimy engineer’ look is really in right now.”

 

*******

“So, that’s the whole story. We went over, filled out the application, lies and all, and it worked. I got accepted. Went through all of my training without a hitch. Ozzy had a hand in helping me fake my age for my license, too.”

Graham had his index and middle fingers pressed to one of his temples as he leaned against the surface of the desk. He’d been staring daggers at Lena throughout her entire explanation.

“So… will I be leaving?” she asked, her voice all but dripping with terror.

Graham remained stoic and silent. His gaze didn’t change, didn’t leave her for a moment.

Lena somberly nodded. “I understand, sir… I’ll go get my things.” She stood from her chair. She looked deflated. Defeated. Broken. “Thank you for the opportunities you’ve given me here. I won’t forget them.”

She reached for the doorknob, and was about to turn it, leave and never come back when a sigh stopped her in her tracks.

“You are very lucky I like you, Oxton.”

She whipped about-face, her mind racing at what he could have meant. “What? Er, pardon me, sir?”

“I may be a miserable old bastard, but I am actually capable of a modicum of compassion,” he said. “Against my better judgement… There will be no court martials, or discharges. You’re staying at Lossiemouth with Squadron Six.”

“Really?!”

“ _But,_ ” he interrupted, “similarly, the knowledge of this file does not, under any circumstances, leave this room. I wager you and I are the only two in the RAF that know about its true nature, and it’s going to stay that way. And if you have been…” He paused, probing his mind for the correct word. “ _Vague_ , about anything else, you will tell me immediately. Otherwise, if I find out about it later, you _will_ be court martialed, and it’ll be in the blink of an eye. Am I understood?”

“Yes sir,” she said, nodding excitedly. “I have nothing else to hide, sir.”

“Good. Now get out of my office, Lieutenant.”

She smiled, tears welling in the corners of her eyes, and she flew from the room, leaving Graham to wallow in what was most assuredly a very dangerous decision. If his knowledge of her dishonesty ever came to light, he’d be discharged right alongside her.

Another skeleton to add to the closet, as it were. At least this one could fly damn well.

Lena, on the other end of the spectrum, felt like she had just run the gauntlet. She had felt the rug slipping out from under, had felt the words “military exile” being carved into her skin letter-by-letter—no dogfight could rival the hair’s breadth escape she’d just weathered.

She brought a hand to her mouth to stifle a nearly-traumatized whimper—after all was said and done, she couldn’t stop the tears from coming in droves.

She nearly ran back to her quarters, _praying_ that she wouldn’t run into anyone; god forbid she see Wes in the halls. She’d have to drum up some contrivance to tell him and the others before they inevitably asked her what the fuss had been about.

For now, she desperately needed sleep. It had been a very long conversation.

Luckily, it had all blown over in enough time, and the next two years at Lossiemouth Airfield came to be the best of her life. Aaron eventually came clean about how his initial dislike of Lena had led him to inquire to Graham about her file. While she divulged none of the conversation she had with the Captain, he was rather certain that’s what it had been about. Not having to sweep dust from the hangar floor for a week was a dead giveaway.

Nevertheless, they’d ingratiated themselves to one another a little way down the road; he apologized for bringing such pressure upon her and didn’t persist as to what had been discussed, and Lena took it in stride. After all, she was still a pilot, wasn’t she? No harm, no foul.

And she had become a very distinguished pilot, at that. Every exercise was carried out with flying colours, every avionics and airframe test was thorough and informative, every op brought notoriety to Lossiemouth, the stars of Squadron Six, and their gruff, esteemed commander.

Enough notoriety that an embedded journalist had been assigned to Squadron Six to get a firsthand, documentable experience of their feats.

Graham and his retinue of illustrious pilots awaited the reporter’s arrival at the mouth of the airfield’s gate, the date having finally rolled around. It had been talked about without pause for weeks on end—having a journalist chronicling their exploits was going to be a lucrative and quite-likely fun experience. It would bring to the masses’ attention the importance of the work they were doing, and Lena saw it as an opportunity to inspire people to reach for the stars.

She had reached for them, and look at where she was now. She was terribly excited.

A jeep approached the gates and hummed to a halt before them, descending to the road before the driver-side door swung open. Lena and her cohorts straightened yet more, trying to look as presentable as possible.

The driver exited the vehicle and strolled around to the passenger side, opening the door for the reporter—

—Who to Lena’s surprise was a _gorgeous_ woman with hair like red satin draped over her broad shoulders. Freckles dotted her pale, stunning face, and she had eyes that put the Aurora Borealis to shame. And her _smile_ — _bloody hell,_ her smile.

_Shite. Shite, shite, shite._

“Miss Collingwood,” Captain Graham greeted. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“You must be Captain Graham,” she said. “The pleasure’s mine. Please, call me Emily.”

_Emily Collingwood? Cor blimey, even her name’s beautiful._

“Allow me to introduce you to the stars of Squadron Six,” Graham said after giving Emily’s hand a tactful shake. “This is Davis Hill, Aaron MacGillvary, William Wesley O’Keefe, and Lena Oxton.”

Davis stepped forth, offering a hand and a friendly smile. “I’m very much looking forward to working with you, ma’am. It’s lovely to meet you.”

“You as well, Lieutenant Hill,” she said. “Are all of your pilots this well-mannered, Captain?”

“Most of us,” Davis answered before gesturing to Aaron. “This plonker here’s got the decorum of a sock puppet.”

“Oh, blow me, you fuckin’ shitehawk,” Aaron fired back with a derisive grin. He didn’t notice, but Graham shot him an icy glare.

Davis shrugged and turned back to Emily. “See what I mean?”

She tilted her head back as she let out a laugh. As her hair fluttered in the wind, so too did Lena’s heart flutter in her chest. She hadn’t said a word to the woman yet, and she was having heart palpitations just by hearing her laugh.

_Fuck me running, I’m going to make a right mug of myself when she gets to me. I know it, I bloody know it._

“And you’re the prolific Lena Oxton,” Emily said, catching Lena by complete surprise as she hadn’t even noticed she had already gotten through her introductions with Gilly and Wes. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Funny, I haven’t heard a thing about you,” Lena said, before her eyes widened to saucers. “Wait, no, that sounds awful—I meant—where I was going with that was, like, I’d _like_ to. Hear more about you, I mean. ‘Cause I’m really looking forward to being with you—I mean, working with you.”

_Make me stop talking make me stop talking make me stop talking make me stop—_

“So am I, Lieutenant,” Emily said through a humoured smile.

“Call me Lena!” Lena just about screamed. “Er, please. Please call me Lena.”

“Only if you call me Emily.”

Lena grinned widely. Probably like an idiot. “Deal.”

Emily returned the expression before turning back to Graham. “Could you show me in, Captain?”

“Of course, ma’am. Right this way.”

Emily strode past the pilots and up the hill, but not before giving Lena a euphonic, delightful little “Bye,” and a subtle wave. Lena turned as she went, watching her approach the airfield.

She was given a jump by the Captain’s voice in her ear.

“Very smooth, Lieutenant.”

An absurd shade of red pervaded her awestruck face. It worsened once Graham took his leave and left her alone to be assailed by her merciless comrades—Wes nearly collapsed from laughter once Emily and Graham were out of earshot.

“Lena Oxton, you silver-tongued devil!” Davis said. “You must get more tail than every bloke on this base with moves like that!”

“That was painful to watch,” Aaron chuckled. “Like, it actually caused me physical duress.”

 _“Fuckin’ hell, you disaster!”_ William cried. _“The gormless look on your face, Christ have mercy on me!”_

Lena groaned in genuine agony. “Please shoot me.”

“Why?!” William said, his face now inches from hers. “You bloody-well shot yourself in the foot already, what’s left for us to do?!” Again, he erupted into laughter.

Until Lena could figure out how to retain her faculties around Emily, the next few weeks were going to be very, very long.


	4. Rapport

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> William schemes to get Lena some one-on-one with Emily, much to Lena's dismay; Squadron Six welcomes Emily to the team via a trip to a local pub.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lena may be a fuckin' trainwreck but dammit she'll be chivalrous if it kills her. Which it probably will. Rest in fucking kill

As Lena had anticipated, the first week had been a long one.

When it came to work, it was easy to talk to Emily. She would ask questions about the Typhoons, or about the prototypes BAE or Supermarine would send their way, and Lena could answer them with practiced ease.

Supermarine had recently renewed production of the Type 553. The project had been scrapped over a century ago due to the necessity of needing to be built from much heavier steel than the original ideation had called for, but with recent developments in ultralight alloys, the Ministry of Defence had given Supermarine the go-ahead to begin production again. Lena had already logged some time with the 553 in endurance tests, and was quick to encounter some flagrant issues.

See, the alloy was light enough that the fighter could cap out at the proposed operational airspeeds and altitudes without heavy fuel consumption—one of the issues that the Bristol 188, the project that the Type 553 had initially been scrapped in favour of, suffered from—but the metals it was composed of weren’t thermally-diffusive enough to sustain the subsequent thermal soak. A heat sink was an idea, but not a very good one as that then poses the questions of where to put it, how cumbersome it would have to be, and how many resources would have to be diverted to it so that the structural integrity of the fuselage wasn’t compromised by a chink in the armour.

She could answer all that in her sleep. But as soon as it came to natural conversation, her social skills fell flat on their proverbial arse.

Hence the dread she felt at Wes’s newest scheme.

“Get your jacket on,” he said, entering the room Lena and Emily had been talking in without a preface to his statement.

“What for?”

“We’re off to the pub. Figure we should christen Emily here as our newest member as a band of Brits properly should.”

Lena turned to Emily, who was sitting at a table scrawling down notes in a journal of hers. “What do you say, Emily? Up for a bender?”

“About bloody time someone asked,” she said, determinately shutting the book before her with a relieved sigh. “Whereabouts are we going?”

“The Gown and Gavel. Pilsner, Gilly and I’re car poolin’—I’m sure Lena would _love_ to give you a ride, though.”

Lena almost leapt from the couch screaming in denial of the claim.

_Oh, you grimy motherf—_

“You don’t mind, do you, Lena?” Emily asked.

“Not at all, love!” she said, masking her consternation with a crooked smile.

“Perfect, I’ll get my jacket. Meet you lads there.”

“Sounds like a plan, darlin’,” William said. “See you two soon.”

Emily left the room to retrieve her things, providing Lena with the absence she needed to launch herself at William.

“Are you raving mad?!” she stage whispered. “My bike doesn’t have a sissy bar—what makes you think I’ll be able to drive with her arms wrapped around my waist when I can’t even formulate proper bloody sentences when we’re in the same room?!”

“You’re Lena Oxton, fighter pilot extraordinaire” he said, a maniacal cackle thinly veiled behind his words. “Me and the fellas are confident you’ll figure somethin’ out.”

“I am going to _fucking skin you—”_

“Ready to go, Lena?” Emily asked. Lena turned to find her in the doorway, adorned in a charcoal hoodie.

“Almost!” she replied, her voice cracking. “Just got to talking to our chum Wes here, be ready to roll in a jiffy!” When she turned to glare at William, she found that he had already fled the room snickering.

She quietly breathed a sigh and shrugged her pilot’s jacket on. She held open the door for Emily, muttering a condemnation as she found herself gawking at Emily’s legs as she sauntered down the hall ahead of her.

They exited the barracks, and were instantly set upon by cold winds. Emily promptly shivered, clearly not adequately prepared for the weather.

“I thought you said you were getting a jacket?” Lena asked.

“I did, but I’ve forgotten where I put it. I threw on this instead, but, _brrr._ ”

Lena didn’t hesitate to shed the jacket from her shoulders. “Here, take mine.”

Emily straightened, widening her eyes. “What about you? You’ve just got a tee on!”

“I’m young, I’ll bounce back,” Lena said with a shrug and a smug smile. “Don’t much like the thought of you getting a cold on my watch, though.”

Emily smiled at her—christ almighty, Lena thought her knees had liquefied—and accepted the jacket. She tugged it on and brushed the fur inside the collar against her cheek.

“I just might have to steal this from you, Flight Lieutenant,” she said. “Thank you, this is very sweet of you.”

“No problem, love, any time,” Lena said as she was readying her bike, refusing to shiver so as to not make Emily feel guilty.

_Looks a hell of a lot better on you than it does on me, anyway._

Emily zipped up the front of the jacket and approached her. Upon further inspection, she was pleasantly surprised by the make of Lena’s bike.

“ _Cor_ , a Kawasaki Ninja 900?”

“Yes ma’am,” Lena said, the pride she felt of her ownership of such a rarity overwhelming her surprise at Emily’s immediate distinction of it.

“Isn't that Maverick's bike?”

 _That_ was enough to surprise her. “Yeah, actually! Bloody shocked you recognized it, nobody I talk to's seen that movie!”

Emily’s grin grew to thoroughly-amused proportions. “So that _is_ why you bought it.”

“Built it, actually,” Lena said, pride seeping from every syllable. “Me and an old friend of mine scavenged the parts and threw ‘er together a few years ago. But yeah, that is exactly why I chose it.”

Emily tossed her head back and laughed that song-like laugh of hers. “You’re a fighter pilot through-and-through, you are.” She knelt to inspect the bike, running a thumb over the decal of Squadron Six’s badge that Lena had recently added to the fuel tank. “That is absolutely wicked. Take a girl for a ride?”

The _noise_ Lena nearly made.

“Love to,” she choked.

They straddled the seat of the outdated sport bike. Lena lifted the helmet from the ground and twirled it in her hand, offering it to Emily.

“Don’t you have a spare?” Emily asked, tentatively taking the helmet from Lena’s hand.

“Nope. Just the one, but I reckon it’s better to protect your noggin than mine,” Lena said, flipping up the kickstand with her foot and kickstarting the engine.

Emily hummed in contentment. “And they say chivalry is dead. Thank you, Lena. Just please be careful, I don’t want you to get hurt at my expense. Or at all, for that matter.”

She wound her arms around Lena’s waist and pressed her cheek between her shoulders, ready to hit the road. Lena did her best to steady her breath, which was short, ecstatic and panicked all at once.

_I’m going to crash the bike before we clear the airfield._

           

*******

“Oi. Oi, Aaron.”

“What?” Aaron replied, recoiling from the elbow that was incessantly nudging him.

Davis nodded his head to the entrance of the pub, taking a drink of the lager for which his predilection was strong enough that it spawned his nickname. “Look at these two.”

Aaron turned to peer out of the booth, William leaning out similarly to steal a glance himself. Their eyes fell upon Emily and Lena, whom had just entered—more specifically, the jacket that Emily was wearing.

“Lena sure works fast, eh?” Aaron said.

“She’s probably right livid with us,” William chuckled.

“No, she’s probably right livid with _you,_ ” Davis corrected. “That was your idea, and Gilly and I aren’t going to lose a wink of sleep over throwing you under the bus.”

“Traitors, the pair o’ you.”

“Evenin’, lads,” Lena said, granting herself a quick scowl at William for the mischief. She offered Emily her seat. “What’ll you have, love?”

“Ah ah ah,” Emily declined. “You drove us here, lent me your jacket, and gave me the only helmet— _I_ will get the drinks. Can’t bloody well let you do everything tonight, can I?”

Lena gave a shrug and a smile. “I s’pose. Can’t have you getting complacent or anything.”

She’d earned another laugh from Emily for that one. “What would you like?”

“Guinness would be great, thanks.”

“A girl after my own heart,” Emily said. “Be right back.”

Lena dropped into the seat she’d intended for Emily and watched her approach the bar with a smile. She turned to find three pairs of eyes and an equal number of sly grins affixed to her.

Her gaze found William first, the smile dissipating quite quickly from her features. “I should take a grain flail to your bollocks.”

“I think what you were looking for was ‘thank you’,” William corrected.

“Bugger right off, I was looking for ‘thank you’!” Lena appalled. “I’m a mess!”

“Oh, come on, you can’t be _that_ bad. Look, you got some one-on-one with her outside of work, didn’t you? _And_ you had her arms wrapped about your sides.” He took a smug swig of his whiskey. “So, I’ll take that thank-you whenever.”

She glanced back to Emily, then back to William. Then back to Emily again.

“Alright, fine, thank you…” she admitted with a pout.

“Something on your mind, dearest?” Davis asked with his trademark sarcasm.

“Just…” Lena let her shoulders sag against the backrest. “I dunno. I wonder if all this disastrous ‘flirting’, if you want to call it that, will really amount to anything. She’s probably straight, with my luck.”

The table was silent for a moment.

“…Mind if I give it a whirl, then?” Aaron teased.

“Get stuffed,” Lena damned. Aaron got a slap about the ears from Will for that one, though that didn’t stop him from laughing.

“Chin up, kiddo,” William said, switching gears from jibing to endearing. “If she’s anything like you, chances are she’s as gay as the day is long.”

That one at least got a laugh from her. No sulking, she decided—they were here to have fun, and that’s what she planned to do.

Emily returned with the drinks for Lena and herself, and shifted beside her into the booth.

The quintet conversed at length, swapping war stories and tales of mischief. One could write volumes on William’s colourful misadventures, consisting of but not limited to drunken escapades involving stealing a friend’s change of clothes and luring him through the busiest streets in Dublin to get them back, and having that same friend exact his revenge in an identical fashion.

“Think we scarred half o’ Dublin that week,” he said. “The best part of it was when Cory cleared a five-foot-high fence spread-eagle. Mad bastard had me in stitches for a month with that one.”

The table hummed with laughter and looks of revulsion augmented by humoured grins.

“You’re incorrigible,” Emily said.

“Guilty as charged, but I rest my case—that was the funniest shite I’ve ever seen.”

“Okay, I’ve got one,” Emily said, leaning in over the table to begin. “This was back when I was living with my ex-girlfriend in Liverpool—”

Lena nearly choked to death on her drink.

William and Aaron erupted into laughter, while Davis gave her a few slaps between the shoulders to try and help expunge the alcohol from her lungs.

“You’re supposed to drink it, not breathe it, Lena” he laughed.

“Girlfriend?” Lena asked, completely ignoring the others. “Girl—you said—you—girlfriend? You said girlfriend?”

“Yes, I said girlfriend,” Emily said. “You seem surprised.”

Lena took a few moments to find her voice. “No, no, just didn’t hear you is all,” she said, shaking her head and receding back into the centre of her seat as she tried to take an as-nonchalant-as-possible sip from her drink.

Lena’s mood really enlivened after that. It ended up being a fantastic night.

William turned out being the designated driver for Aaron and Davis. Not out of prior planning, but out of being the only one of the three of them with an alcohol tolerance high enough to not be devoid of his mental faculties by the end of the night. Aaron was a close second, though, for which he received consistent teasing from William.

Lena was no lightweight herself—unlike Davis, bless the man—but she’d nonetheless been overly-careful and refrained from any more than two pints, being that she was Emily’s ride back, too.

The group went their separate ways in the barracks, some of them stumbling into their quarters with noisy disregard for the others trying to sleep in the neighbouring rooms.

“How’d you like the first night out with the gang?” Lena asked Emily.

“Oh, it was the dog's,” she said. “Thanks for having me. And for everything else; you’re really quite charming, has anyone told you that?”

Lena blushed furiously and gave a demure grin. “Here and there. Sounds best coming from you, though.”

Emily smiled back at her. “Goodnight, Lena. See you tomorrow.”

“You too, Em.”

Lena turned and entered her room, leaving Emily in the commons.

Emily looked down to see Lena’s jacket still draped over her forearm. Oh, bollocks, she’d forgotten to give it back to her. She approached the door to knock on it and return—

…Well, Lena wouldn’t mind, would she? Emily didn’t really want to bug her, anyway; she seemed too tired.

She decided against disturbing her and retired to her own room for the night. She shed her clothes in favour of something more comfortable and threw herself beneath the covers, feeling herself quickly dozing off.

Lena’s jacket was clutched tightly to her chest. She buried her face in the fur collar, smiling at the scent of cologne tempered with leather and jet fuel.

The jacket seemed to act like a catalyst for a good night’s rest—she slept _wonderfully_. She chuckled to herself as she sat up in her bed the following morning, wondering how Lena would react upon being told that. She decided on sparing her that one, at least for the time being.

She shrugged the jacket on and padded into the common room, finding Lena brewing a pot of coffee.

“Morning,” she greeted.

Lena turned to her, and a streak of red immediately rose beneath her cheeks. “Morning, Em. You’re wearing my jacket.”

“Oh, right. I’d forgotten to give it back to you last night before you’d gone to bed and I didn’t want to disturb you, so I held onto it for the night.” Quite literally, actually. “It’s really comfy. I hope you don’t mind.”

“No, no, not at all. Just…” Lena paused, finding herself at a loss for words. Emily’s hair was tousled, and cascaded over her shoulders with careless elegance; her sandy brown eyes reflected morning light like crystals.

Emily awoke seconds ago, but still she looked stunning, and on top of it all, she was wearing _her_ jacket.

Lena cleared her throat, finding the courage to deliver a compliment with a smile. “It just looks much better on you than it does me, is all.”

Perhaps she was seeing things, but she could have sworn she saw a crimson hue adorn Emily’s pale features.

“I don’t think you give yourself enough credit, Flight Lieutenant,” Emily fired back, her lips upturned in similar bravado.

Lena blushed even more, but to abstain from smiling would require a strength she simply didn’t possess. “I don’t suppose…”

Emily leaned her head to the side. “You don’t suppose what?”

She considered relinquishing the request and going about her day, but…

_Ah, quit being such a scaredy-cat, Oxton, just get it over with._

“I don’t suppose you’d like to grab a bite to eat sometime?” she asked, steeling herself. “Lunch today, maybe?”

“Again, you don’t give yourself enough credit,” Emily laughed. “I’d really like that, Lena.”

If Lena’s smile grew any wider, it would threaten to knock her ears off. “So, it’s a date then.”

“Sure is. See you then.”

Emily swiped the cup of coffee from Lena’s hands and left the room, leaving the jacket on the counter. She peered through the gap in the door as it closed behind her, just catching sight of Lena leaping from the floor and launching a fist into the air.

Emily smiled and laughed to herself. For being a prodigious, bleeding-edge fighter pilot who at a young age had become a titan in her field, Lena was certainly flustered by pretty girls.

She was a cute one, that Lena Oxton.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is also a quick reminder that I read and appreciate every comment I get. Not just on this, but like, anything. I refrain from responding most of the time just so I don't inflate the comment count (maybe I should anyway who knows) but like fuck man even if I don't, I love reading 'em. They validate my miserable fucking existence and I love you. That is all.


	5. Setting the Stage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena and Emily decide that their first date went well enough to garner a second, and before long, it becomes rare to see one without the other; Lena's grim past finally surfaces in conversation, much to her displeasure about endangering Emily with the knowledge of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A healthy dose of fluff tempered with a little bit of angst. Enjoy, my little bastards!

If Lena’s history was any indication, her first date with Emily should have been catastrophic. She hadn’t displayed the social acuity necessary to hold a conversation with a road sign, let alone a dazzling journalist whose radiant features brought shame to the Renaissance and whose mellifluous voice sounded like a one-woman orchestra.

Which was precisely why she was ecstatic that it could not have gone any better. They did nothing but talk for three hours, during which time both had discovered that the other’s penchants and propensities were one and the same with their own.

The two had returned to the airfield, having brought their exceedingly-successful first outing to a close, and were standing just beyond the doors to the air traffic control tower.

“So, what do you say?” Lena asked, the same grin on her lips as the one she’d adorned when they first sat down at the fish and chips shop. “Think you’d be up for a round two?”

“I think I would,” said Emily through a mirror expression. “How’s tomorrow sound?”

“Sounds lovely already, knowin’ you’re gonna be there.”

“You charmer, you,” Emily laughed. She reckoned that Lena couldn’t have been more classically gallant that day even if she’d ferried her to and from their date on horseback.

She placed her hands on Lena’s shoulders and set a kiss on her rapidly-reddening cheek. “I had a lovely time. Can’t wait for tomorrow.”

“Me too,” Lena said, managing to call the words to her racing mind. Emily parted with a delicate wave and smile, entering the control tower.

She’d learned to make a point of waiting a few seconds more to espy Lena as she left, who, not knowing she was under scrutiny, tried her best to calmly walk away before wordlessly springing from the sidewalk and erratically throwing her arms into the air.

Emily wondered if she did that _every_ time they had a successful interaction or if it was reserved for special ones, and which one of the possibilities flattered her more.

Lena made a beeline for the Typhoon hangar, bursting at the seams to tell her mates about the recent development and knowing they would be there.

She entered to find William in the cockpit of a Typhoon, running pre-flight diagnostics and check-ups, and flanked on either side by Davis and Aaron. They noticed her and her unmollifiable, vainglorious grin in unison.

“Why hello there, Cheshire,” Davis greeted. “Where’ve you been?”

“On a date,” she said, smugger than ever before.

“Ooh, spicy! Who’s the lucky lady?”

Lena simply arched an eyebrow, allowing them to piece it together for themselves. William’s jaw just about shattered the control panel of his fighter upon doing so.

“Go and _shite_!” he shouted in disbelief. Lena simply smiled wider, prompting him to follow and launch from the seat shortly thereafter. He lifted her from the floor as he approached and spun her in circles over his shoulder. “‘Atta girl, Oxton!”

He set her down but his excited onslaught continued; he threw an arm around her neck and mussed her hair with an open palm, walking her to back to the Typhoon.

“What’s the verdict, then? How’d it go?”

“It went _fantastic,_ Will, I couldn’t believe it. We’re on again tomorrow!”

“You’re on again tomorrow!” he echoed, basking in the moment as much as Lena was. “That’s pure deadly, love, congratu-fuckin’-lations!”

 

*******

As it happened, successful dates had become something of a pattern between Lena and Emily. The second had outmatched even the first, and the third had involved a junket along a country road accompanied by loud, off-key duets of songs far older than those who had belted them out in the car. Regardless of what they did together, they made an excellent time of it.

Which, of course, given Lena's predilection for daring-do, gave her an idea that she was perhaps a bit too quick to applaud herself for, as it was quite likely to get them in shit.

“Are you sure we won’t get in trouble for this?”

“I’m pretty sure that we will, actually!”

Lena punched the gas and lifted the front wheel of her motorcycle from the ground before Emily could make an argument. They fired out of the motor pool like a shot, Emily squealing with laughter and clutching to Lena tight enough to impede breathing.

Lena ripped through the complex in between barracks, portables, and fellow crewmen, before speeding up a hill and launching onto the tarmac. The wheels hit the ground with a thud and a screech, and they took off again down the runway.

On the adjacent airstrip was a Typhoon ready for takeoff. Lena veered across the distance between them and pulled up beside the fighter, flicking the aviators from her eyes and calling to the pilot to pop the window.

The canopy hissed open and slowly lifted, revealing Aaron and William in the cockpit. “Hello, ladies!” William called out.

“Top of the morning to you, gents!” Lena shouted. “Just taking Em here out for a little high-octane excursion. Care for a race?”

“You’re on, flygirl,” Aaron challenged. “Beat you to the end of the runway.”

“We’ll see about that,” came Lena’s confident rejoinder. She donned her glasses once again as the canopy of her friendly foe sealed shut, and its engine whirred to life.

Lena turned around to flip the visor of Emily’s helmet up so she could see her eyes, which were alight with adventurous wonder. “Ready?”

She emphatically nodded, and Lena could just barely hear her laughing over the sound of the jet’s howling roar.

Lena turned her eyes downwind, revved the engine, scorched the asphalt with the back tire, and flew down the airstrip ahead of the jet. She put her chest to the fuel tank, Emily still clutching to her as they flew like a tempest.

Aaron and William’s speed built quickly. They overtook the motorcycle two thirds down the runway, and Lena shot her fist into the air as they lifted into the sky. The gust of air in its wake pinned her collar to her cheek and sent the wild red strands of Emily’s hair that frayed out from underneath her helmet flicking and wavering.

Lena then made a harrowing escape, figuring that ATC likely wouldn’t be too pleased about her stunt and deciding that discretion was the better part of valour. Emily’s laughing and cheering rang in her ears, and she smiled against the rushing wind.

They had to return to the airfield eventually, and Lena would find herself in Graham’s office fighting harder than she ever had to stifle a grin.

“It should go without saying that you of all people are aware of the dangers of proximity to jet blast, Lieutenant Oxton,” said Captain Graham, unimpressed by her antics.

“I am, sir.”

“So why were you racing MacGillvary and O’Keefe’s fighter down the runway on a nearly-century-old motorcycle?”

“I was trying to impress a girl, sir.”

Graham eyed her for a moment before sighing cigar smoke from his mouth. He could respect the reasoning, at least.

“You may be the best pilot on this airfield, but that does not give you carte blanche to run amok on it with blatant disregard for safety regulations.” He set the cigar in its ashtray among the stubs of two others. “ _With that being said_ —I quite like Miss Collingwood, so for her sake, you have one warning. You will not get another.”

He stood from his chair and walked around to the front of his desk, leaning against it. “You make her very happy, Lena. Try to stay out of trouble.”

Her smirk finally won the battle she’d been waging with it. “I will, sir. Thank you, sir.”

 

*******

Later that night, Lena and Emily found themselves laying beside one another on runway one-nine beneath a star-blanketed sky. There weren’t any scheduled flights, so they had all the time in the world.

The relatively little time that had passed since their relationship had begun had seen them enamoured with one another. Emily always laughed loud enough to incur strange looks when she was with Lena, and Lena herself could frequently be found staring at Emily as if she was art in motion, for which she received ample ribbing from her friends regarding the “gormless look on her face.”

Aaron had even described them as “sickeningly chipper” when they were in each other’s company. They were properly smitten with one another. Which was why Lena felt so strange wholeheartedly dreading a question Emily had asked her.

“You’ve heard plenty about me growing up, but you’ve not said a word yourself. What about you? You must have all kinds of stories.”

Such an inquiry had haunted her, hung over her head like a foreshadowing storm cloud. She’d known it was coming from the moment they began dating, and still hadn’t enough time to decide on an answer, or if she even wanted to give one at all.

Graham made it _exceedingly_ clear that no-one else was to know about her past. The knowledge of it would surely endanger Emily—if it were ever to come to light, and she be deemed an accomplice or something else equally malicious and stupid, her career would be destroyed.

Lena also didn’t like hiding things from her, and felt even less inclined to lie about them.

She shifted her arm beneath her head, deciding that she was going to settle in for another bittersweet life story. “More sad ones than happy, I’m afraid.”

“Oh,” said a surprised Emily. “I’m sorry, love, I didn’t mean to bring up any bad memories.”

“It’s okay. You deserve to know. Just… I trust you, Em, you know that, but I _have_ to stress how important it is that you don’t breathe a _word_ of this to anyone.”

Emily was taken aback by the crucial tone Lena had adopted. What was she about to tell her? What grievous truth could this sprightly, spirited, lovely girl possibly be hiding?

But she knew not to ask such a question. If anything, the exhibition of a disposition so antithetic to Lena’s personality spoke volumes more than any answer she could provide. She needed her to listen, and to trust her, and that was all the convincing Emily needed.

“I won’t tell anyone.”

Lena heaved a sigh, largely unsure of where to begin. She decided it would be best to get right to the crux of the matter. “…I lied my way into the RAF.”

Emily’s head jerked back, her hair coarse against the leather of Lena’s jacket that lay folded beneath her as a makeshift pillow. She hadn’t expected that.

“I was fourteen when I applied,” Lena continued. “Minimum age is fifteen, so I faked it. I got a friend of mine, Ozzy, to forge my dad’s signature. I lied.”

“Why’d you have to?” Emily asked. “Did your parents disapprove of you wanting to be a pilot?”

“Not at all, actually. I wanted to fly practically since I started walking, and my folks were always supportive. But, that’s the thing… They died in a race riot when I was six. Saw it happen on the telly. Got pulled out of the car and just… beaten to death in the street. Kept me up at night for close to half a year.”

If Lena had looked over instead of continuing as her eyes trailed off into the night, she would have seen the portrait of shock and sadness painted on Emily’s face. She went on recounting her life to her, from her years-long tenure as a nomad to her being taken in by Ozzy around the start of secondary school, and the scheme they had developed that got her where she was.

“Captain Graham knows this whole spiel, too, but only because he did some serious digging. It’s funny,” she scoffed, clearly not thinking it was at all humourous. “He called me into his office about a month after I’d been stationed here and slaps my file on his desk, and then the newspaper publication with my folks’ names in the obituaries when I said the signature was my dad’s. I think he got some investigative reporter chum of his to dig it up, the clever old codger.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner,” she said as she sat up and perched her elbows on her knees, “it’s just… You know me, there’s nothing I hate more than being a downer. And the stuff about the RAF could ruin my life. You and Cap would be in a lot of trouble if word of it ever got out. You might be branded a collaborator to this big, stupid conspiracy of mine, and I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.”

A short silence passed before Lena, about to begin rattling off excuses for her assumed dishonesty, felt cold hands on her jaw jerking her head to the side. She was unable to close her eyes as warm lips crashed with hers, and she glanced down to find Emily’s brow knitted and her eyelids shut like blast doors.

She recovered from her surprise and cupped her hand around Emily’s slender neck, kissing her back as her eyes fluttered closed.

They parted after a time—how long had it actually been? The passage of time had dispelled into a blur when they kissed—and Emily touched her forehead to Lena’s.

“Thank you for trusting me,” she whispered. “Please don’t apologize.”

Lena’s voice faded into silence. She resigned instead to staring deeply into Emily’s beautiful light-brown eyes, without a word.

“Will you stay with me tonight?” Emily asked.

Lena nodded against her after a moment’s consideration. Emily bowed her head affirmatively before rising to her feet, lacing her fingers with Lena’s as they returned to their quarters in the barracks.

Feverishly, the door to Emily’s room was thrown open, and clothes were scattered to the floor. Lena lurched backwards onto the bed and dragged Emily down with her, their bodies flush and their lips entwined.

They would awake the following morning, but not before tender embraces would disperse from Lena’s mind the crises that plagued it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prepare your lithe little quivering bodies for some ruinous emotional trauma you shitheels


	6. Sentimentality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena and Emily awake in the morning, keen on ignoring obligations in favour of their company; Aaron's atypical sentimental side comes to bare while conversing with Emily; Squadron Six is called to action.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LOOK I'M SORRY I KEPT PUTTING THIS ONE OFF ALRIGHT, BREATH OF THE WILD HAS BEEN GORGING ITSELF ON MY FREE TIME
> 
> Anyway it's here, so enjoy!
> 
> Also fuck why did I decide to name every one of these stupid things I'm terrible at naming shit
> 
> EDIT 03/16/2017: For whatever reason this chapter got posted twice, not sure why. I kept the original and deleted the eighth and seventh (the seventh being a draft) but it still deleted the comments which was a bummer. I did read them all though and they were super nice! Fuckin' love you guys, kisses <3
> 
> PS, thanks AapZai for the heads-up on the phantom-ass double post

The scent of peppermint and cinnamon stirred Lena from a pleasant slumber.

Motes of brownish-red stippled across a pale, slender face greeted her eyes upon waking. Vermillion filaments of hair lay splayed out across the pillows and the narrow space between them. The sheets, undulating with Emily’s calm breathing, dipped into the contour of her abdomen and rose again at her hips.

_Well ‘at’s a welcome sight._

Lena reached up to brush the strands of hair from Emily’s face. Her fingers glided across her cheek and traced her jaw, and the corner of Emily’s lips flickered into a smile beneath the featherweight touch.

“Mmmorning…” she rasped.

The huskiness in her voice drove Lena nearly mad. “‘Ello ‘ello. Have a good sleep?”

“I had a _fantastic_ sleep.”

“Flatterer.”

Emily hummed with laughter and pressed her lips to Lena’s. Their hands wandered again and brought them closer to one another. She parted, and looked into Lena’s eyes with a smile.

“I’ve never been one for poetry,” Lena began, grinning a foolish grin that indicated she was much too proud of herself, “but you’ve got a smile that makes the sunrise look like a blind cobbler’s thumb.”

Emily laughed aloud. “That was _dreadful._ ”

“Take the compliment, love.”

Lena closed her eyes and smiled in contentment as Emily coursed her fingers through her hair. She huddled her head into the slope of Emily’s neck, tightly coiling her arms around her waist.

She wanted nothing more than for the two of them to stay in bed for the rest of the day. Airframes needed evaluation and articles needed writing, but finding the energy to care about those responsibilities became exponentially harder with each passing second.

“Hey Em?”

“Mhm?”

“Wanted to thank you.”

She felt the exhalation of Emily’s laugh against her head. “You’re thanking me for sex?”

“Oh, come off it,” Lena chuckled. “No. It was more than that, but… just, y’know, thanks for bein’ you.”

“Awh.” Emily pressed her lips to Lena’s chaotic bed of hair. “That’s really sweet.”

Lena shrugged, and smiled against Emily’s collarbone. “I try.”

Then they lay in silence. Pleasant solitude, sometimes short-lived and infrequent, which served only to make it that much more enjoyable.

It sometimes proved difficult, finding time for one another. Whenever they could, they were with each other on the airfield, but orchestrating their dates had been a borderline-herculean effort with their daytime schedules being as they were. Deadlines had to be met and equally-busy technicians, pilots, officers and administrative workers had to be corralled in order for Emily to gather the necessary information for her writing. Trying to sit down with Captain Graham for an hour was like trying to get an interview with the Pope.

Lena was no layabout herself; every week, Boscombe Down sent yet another transmission about new projects from BAE and Supermarine that needed assessments and acceptance trials, always requesting to have the prolific Lieutenant Oxton run the preliminaries again. Combat simulations, fast-response strike missions, even being harangued for professional opinions on bloody gunship construction—she was like a military celebrity.

But when they found the time for simple relaxation, it was bliss.

Or it was, until William came hurtling into the room.

“Oi, Em, remember when y—”

Emily shrieked in surprise and threw the covers over her head. Lena launched upright by reflex and pulled the sheet across her chest, her face couched in abhorrence.

“Jesus, Will, what the hell?!”

“Oh, fuckin’ hell, sorry!”

“You didn’t think to knock first?!”

“What are you even doing in here?!”

“Having tea an’ biscuits with Her Majesty’s reanimated corpse—what the _fuck_ do you think I’m doing in here?!”

“I just didn’t expect you’d—”

“Who gives a shit?! _Get out, you pillock!_ ”

“ _Right, sorry!_ ” William whipped about to make for the exit, his panic exacerbating his movements enough that he misjudged the distance between himself and the doorframe, knocking the side of his forehead against the steel wall.

“Son of a _bitch!_ Sorry, leaving, I’m sorry!”

The door hissed to a close behind him as he stumbled beyond the threshold into the hallway, where a muffled “Fuck me!” could be heard.

The look of contempt on Lena’s face slowly slackened and waned as she rose to a fit of uncontrollable hysterics, joined shortly thereafter by Emily. They really did want to be mad at William for lacking the common courtesy of knocking, but… Well, even they had to admit that it was pretty funny.

 

*******

“Look at these three,” Aaron laughed.

William and Lena stood singing and swaying aside the burnished oak-wood studio piano housed in The Gown and Gavel, at which sat Davis, whose fingers danced across the keys. He played an old song, older than most of the pub’s patrons combined, regarding a mother’s disinclination to dancing and a father’s indisposition to rocking and rolling.

“Where does she hear this fannybawz?” Aaron questioned. “Her taste in music’s older’n she is three times over.”

“Hey, I like this ‘fannybawz’ too,” Emily said.

He scoffed. “Match made in heaven, the pair of ya.”

“Sure seems that way, doesn’t it?”

“Surer than bears shittin’ in the woods.”

The two shared a laugh and a simultaneous pull of their drinks, lowering the glasses in time to see Lena and William visiting other tables with merry serenades.

“What’ll you do once you’re done at Lossiemouth?” Aaron asked.

“Probably hound my boss until he lets me _stay_ at Lossiemouth,” Emily laughed. “I’ve still got a few years left of my station, but… I dunno, I guess I hadn’t thought about it that much. How about you?”

“Probably head back to my folks in Stonehaven. Haven’t seen ‘em in a while.”

A telling silence pervaded the conversation.

“Wherever you end up going—do you think you’ll take Lena with you?”

Emily shrugged, leaning her head back in thought and staring at the ceiling. “I’d like to, yes. Hopefully whatever circumstances crop up down the road will let us. Why do you ask?”

She turned to Aaron, waiting for a reply, to see him staring at Lena with a thoughtful fixation. Emily couldn’t quite hear it over the raucous singing trio, but she could tell by the rise-and-fall of his shoulders that he breathed a heavy sigh.

“Because I’ve never seen her happier. Get her and Wes together, that’s one thing—you’d think they were bleedin’ siblings, the way they get along. But her and you…”

Unbeknownst to Emily, or anyone except himself for that matter, the recent ruminative spike within the typically-stony and reserved Aaron MacGillvary was borne of guilt. A gnawing guilt. One that had nagged at him for the past two years.

He and Lena were on excellent terms, now. He counted her among his best friends, and she him. They’d throw their lives on the line for one another without question. Their first impressions of one another were rather adverse, his distrust and his “ratting out” of her to Graham quite toxic, but it had all been water under the bridge for far too long for it to matter anymore.

So why, after all this time, did he still feel like he owed her something?

For the millionth time, he dismissed it.

“She’s a good kid,” he continued, feeling Emily looking at him from beyond his view. “A great kid. I’m asking because I want her to have the best, which, for her, is you. Just want you two to be happy. You and… Tracer.”

Aaron felt less tense, as if Emily’s gaze somehow weighed upon him slighter.

“‘Tracer’, eh?” she said softly.

“Yeah… Yeah, Tracer. Seems fittin’, the way she flies, the lunatic. About time she got a nickname anyway—s’only been two years. Whaddae ya think?”

Emily turned her gaze back to the newly-christened Tracer, arm locked with William while Davis hammered away at ivory keys.

“I like it,” she agreed, nodding. “I like it a lot. I think she will too.”

With her eyes affixed to Lena, a wide reactionary smile cut a gentle swath through her lips.

Aaron finished his drink and conclusively slammed the thick glass onto the surface of the table. He smoothed his slicked back hair and ran a hand down across his hawkish features, turning to Emily with a quirk in his lips.

“Think I’m about blootered enough to join ‘em, now. Care to come with?”

“I’ll sit back and observe for now, thanks,” she said with a euphonic laugh. Her expression turned gentle and genuine.

“That was very sweet of you, Aaron. It was a nice talk.”

“Same to you, love.” He parted with a friendly wink and ascended the modest performance stage their compatriots had relocated to with a spry leap, joining in the festivities and dancing in relative co-ordination.

 _Tracer,_ Emily thought. _Sounds like a superhero name… She’ll love it._

It wasn’t long before that train of thought was derailed and she was pulled into the revelry herself by an exuberant William.

 

*******

“ATC, this is Tracer. Avionics malfunction-and-recovery assessment is green. I’m inbound on bearing one-one-five, requesting permission to land.”

“ _Tracer, ATC—runway one-eight is clear, you have permission to touch down. Taxi into hangar bay five.”_

“Copy, setting her down.”

The tires of Lena’s prototype Javelin GMR5 fighter screeched as they skidded to a halt across the tarmac. She was welcomed into the hangar by the parting doors and brought the jet to a full stop beside the refueling rig.

The canopy popped and she stepped from the cockpit onto the ladder below, disburdening her hair from her flight helmet. She tossed it to a passing crewman with a whistle, grabbing his attention so as to not conk him with it.

“How’s she handle?” a technician asked.

“Not bad at all,” Lena commended, admittedly surprised after the slew of mediocrity she’d hitherto been wading through whenever projects were sent her way. The lads at manufacturing had gotten sloppy.

“The interface is intuitive and it caps out at the proposed specs,” she continued, “but the roll speed is a little slow. Tell ‘em to shave a centimetre or two off the wingspan and it should be ship-shape. Oh, and ask if they can make the cockpit any roomier, it’s like a bloody breadbox in there.”

The technician nodded in acknowledgement as he tapped away at his tablet, filling out the preliminary report for Supermarine’s new toy which Lena was sure they were thoroughly patting themselves on the back for.

It was quite the feat of aerodynamics, the Javelin. The plan was to have the Typhoon pass the torch to a more advanced airframe by the end of the next few years, and Supermarine was poised to accept it. The Typhoon was by no means obsolete yet, but it was certainly getting a little long in the tooth compared to other contemporary air force standards.

Whatever they drummed up in the coming years, however, couldn’t compare to Lena’s kite. In her mind, at least.

She entered the Typhoon hangar the other day to discover a turbulent white stroke of paint flanked by stripes of orange and blue stretched across her fighter’s fuselage. Upon the war paint was plastered _Tracer_ , in bold italics.

Calligraphy couldn’t hold a candle to it.

Aaron had casually called her the name the night they left the Gown and Gavel. It was about time she had herself a proper epithet, and she couldn’t be happier with it. She found herself entertaining the notion of being a superhero under the moniker numerous times since the dubbing, much to Emily’s prediction.

It was like a rebirth. A reincarnation that stood as a testament of her achievements. Who would have thought that Aaron of all people would have been the one to come up with it, grumpy bugger that he was?

Lena left the hangar bay to deliver her report to Graham, collecting Emily on the way.

“Have I ever told you how much I like that flight suit of yours?” Emily asked as they walked the halls leading to the Captain’s office.

Lena raised an eyebrow and took on a smirk that mirrored Emily’s. “You’ll have to tell me all about it later.”

“Maybe I’ll show you instead.”

Lena’s grin widened and her face twisted in mischief, accepting the challenge. She composed herself and opened the door to Graham’s office, but was interrupted before a greeting could pass her lips.

“Squadron Six, report to hangar bay nine for QRA operation. Squadron Six, report to hangar bay nine for Quick Reaction Alert operation.”

His voice boomed over the loudspeakers and echoed throughout the base. He lifted his hand from the intercom and strode briskly to the door, shouldering past Lena and Emily.

“Come with me,” he ordered.

The two women shared a worried glance with one another before starting after him, barely able to comfortably keep pace with him.

“What’s happening, sir?” Lena asked.

“PANSA’s reporting activity over the Polish-Belarusian border. A small flight—a bomber with two fighters as an escort. ATC’s pinged them three times but hasn’t gotten a word back. We’re not sure what they’re doing, but they’ve been circling for about half an hour now.”

He threw open the door to the Typhoon hangar to find Aaron, William and Davis already kitted up and spooling the engines of their fighters. William flagged Lena down.

“C’mon, kiddo, we gotta get moving!” he shouted. “Baddies to scare off!”

He retreated into the back seat of the Tracer Typhoon and donned his helmet, confirming its security with a light tap to the side of his head.

Lena turned to Emily, and took her hands in hers.

“Duty calls, love. Gotta scoot.”

The look of concern on Emily’s face was torturous. Unease reared its head whenever Lena was called into danger, and Emily never got used to the feeling.

“Please be careful,” Emily whispered.

Lena quickly pressed her lips to Emily’s, confident that it wouldn’t be the last time but always aware that it could be.

“You know me, Em,” she said through a comforting grin. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

 

*******

_“Radar contact on our bogeys. Five-hundred knots out, angels fifteen. Come up on their right flank and move to intercept.”_

“Copy, intercepting,” Lena responded to Aaron’s report. She turned to William behind her. “Showtime, mate.”

“All yours, Tracer,” he said.

Lena nosed up hard and took the right flank of the flight of contentious aircraft. She turned her head left to inspect them, and could see Aaron and Davis’s Typhoon on the opposite side.

On the wings of the black planes was painted an emblem; a red tridental claw against a bluish-purple shield. The crescent left and right prongs flanked a lance-like spike in the middle.

“This is Squadron Six of the Royal Air Force. You have ten seconds to identify yourself and state your business or you will be fired upon,” Lena said into her jet’s transmitter.

She awaited a response.

Nothing.

“You have five seconds to identify yourself and state your business or you _will_ be fired upon.”

Nothing still. The craft stayed their course.

“These guys aren’t getting it,” she said. “We’re gonna have to do this the hard way. Wes, Gilly, spool up our guns and prime—”

The howl of one of the fighters’ engines cut her off. It hurled backwards behind them and conformed to Lena’s trajectory.

“They’re locking missiles!” William shouted. “Get us out of here!”

Without another word, Lena put the jet in a harrowing nosedive. The enemy fighter followed after them in dogged pursuit, the clarion warning of missile lock blaring in their ears and throughout the cockpit.

 _“What’s happening up there?”_ Graham asked over the long-range radio.

“They’re engaging!” Lena shouted back. “Hostile fighters, repeat, hostile fighters! Get PANSA on the horn and tell ‘em they’ve got tangos in the air!”

She could hear Graham barking orders in the background of the comm.

 _“Can you handle them, pilots?”_ he asked.

“We’ll cook ‘em and fry ‘em, Cap, no worries!”

 _“Don’t you know who you’re talking to, sir?”_ Davis interjected. _“That’s Tracer! Lena bloody Oxton!”_

Lena grinned wide, and hooked her fighter hard left. For a split-second, she could see Davis and Aaron engaging the other hostile, before returning her attention to the one at her six.

It locked missiles and let its payload fly, the warhead closing in fast. William punched the countermeasures, sending arcs of blinding flares cascading into the sky. The missile fell astray, whizzing past them harmlessly.

Lena veered right and killed the engine, feigning a U-turn. The fighter on their tail fell for the ploy, and was now at their mercy as Lena re-engaged the engines and flew forth after it.

It dodged their fire with trained precision, deploying jamming flares and arching in gravity-defying loops.

“Blimey, this guy’s good,” Lena said. “How’re you two doing, Pilsner?”

_“We’ve got ours on the run, too, but he’s no rookie neither. Drive your guy over here and put him in a nosedive. We’ll break off and switch targets, throw ‘em for a loop.”_

“Roger, we’ll get them in close.” She switched the channel off. “You heard all that, eh, Wes?”

“Loud and clear,” he replied. “Let’s ground the fuckers.”

Lena forced their target closer and closer to Davis and Aaron, pass by pass, loop by loop. They were about to be in perfect formation for their plan—right where they wanted them.

“Ready, guys?”

_“Wait, wait, wait, hold on; what the bloody hell is this guy doing? He’s—Lena, break off, break off now!”_

Davis slammed the reverse thrusters and pulled back, throwing their plan to the wind. Lena didn’t hesitate, didn’t question it, but even she couldn’t have been fast enough.

The fighter Davis had been chasing hooked left and came face-to-face with the Typhoon, having made the grievous error of not paying enough attention to Lena and William’s position.

He nosed up and tried to avoid a collision, but his efforts were in vain. Lena steered left and rolled though the effect was the same—they were simply going too fast.

The hostile fighter slammed belly-first into the right side of the Typhoon, shredding its wing and stabilizers. The hull crunched inwards under the impact, and Lena and William’s jet was sent reeling.

The Typhoon was spinning tabletop as it careened through the air, pinning its pilots to the side of the cockpit. Lena heard William struggling to eject the seat. She forced her head to turn to find a chunk of metal embedded beneath the handle.

“It’s stuck!” he shouted. He put all his strength into pulling it free but to no avail.

They were trapped.

“Trident Black, this is Argus Two,” Lena relayed as calmly as she could, fighting to regain control of the plane. “We have a collision. Starboard wing, starboard horizontal stabilizer, and both vertical stabilizers are gone. We’re going down, bearing two-six-two.”

_“Argus T—peat your t—mission.”_

Lena relayed her transmission again and again, devoting every ounce of power she had to keeping the fighter under control as best she could. They burst out from beneath the clouds, and a blanket of treetops hurtled towards them at blinding speed.

“Twelve-hundred metres and closing fast!” she shouted. “Brace yourself, Will!”

In the time between her warning and their collision with the peaks of the forest, the world fell silent. Lena heard only her own breathing, her own heartbeat, her own fear swelling in her chest and eyes.

Not the jet. Not the garbled transmission in her ear. Just... silence of everything external.

Nothing.

And then…

Trees snapped in half like toothpicks as the jet careened into their trunks, splintering into supernumerary shards of wooden shrapnel with deafening cracks. The cockpit rocked and jolted, and as the hull made contact with the forest floor, logs and stone ground and ripped and clawed at its belly.

The left wing slammed into a boulder, and the nose of the fighter leapt from the ground. It halted at the zenith of its forceful jump before plummeting back to the earth and smashing into the dirt.

Lena’s vision went black.


	7. Stranded

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Captain Graham mobilizes troops in order to recover a shipwrecked Lena and William, fighting to stop an insistent and concerned Emily from going with them; Lena awakes in the cockpit of her fighter, herself and William worse for wear as hostile troops close in on them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See, when I don't waste all of my goddamn time playing Breath of the Wild, I can actually pump my trash out with a respectable frequency. Now excuse me while I go play Breath of the Wild

“Argus Two, repeat your transmission.”

_“We ha—llision. Starboard wing, st—and vertical stabil—gone. We’re going down, bear—six-two.”_

"Argus Two, your signal is weak,” Graham said. “Repeat your transmission.”

The signal came through once again, as legible as the last. Glances, furtive and frightened, were shared throughout the room. Graham persisted at trying to decipher the incoherent and jumbled message.

The static built exponentially, swallowing Lena’s broadcast, only to finally be outmatched by rapid-fire heavy cracks of snapping bark.

And finally, silence.

“Argus Two, respond,” Graham barked. “Argus Two. Oxton, O’Keefe, dammit, respond!”

He whipped about to the communications officer. “Has PANSA gotten back to the Polish Air Force yet?”

“Yes sir, they’ve informed them about the hostile aircraft and have mobilized fighters.”

“Tell them to redirect that bomber, _not_ to shoot it down. We have grounded pilots out there, and they’re going to want to comb through that bomber for anything they can.”

The officer nodded, and returned his attention to the monitor and microphone before him, relaying Graham’s message in Polish to the recipient.

“Argus One, what’s happening?

 _“Enemy fighters are down, sir,”_ Davis replied, his voice all but seeping with concern. _“We scratched ours after the first crashed into Tracer and Wes.”_

“Wait until the Polish Air Force arrives to redirect the bomber and return to base.”

 _“Permission to speak freely, sir,”_ Aaron hastily barked, no doubt wanting to refute the command in favour of tracking down Lena and William.

“Denied. Return to base, pilots. That’s an order _._ ”

Graham switched off the channel after a bitter “Yes sir,” and turned to address the room.

“Gear up two MERT teams and have them on standby,” he bellowed. “I want Chinooks ready to mobilize the second our pilots get home.”

 _“Sir!”_ Davis suddenly shouted, re-opening communications on an emergency channel. _“The bomber is deploying airborne forces! They’re descending over Argus Two’s crash site, in the forest!”_

The room fell silent again, save for Graham’s hurried footsteps back to the console.

“They’re being deployed?” he asked. “Not ejected?”

_“Yes sir!”_

“And the Air Force isn’t there yet?”

_“No sir!”_

“Then shoot down as many of the bastards as you can.”

_“Gladly, sir!”_

Graham turned off the console once again, detectably more forceful than the last time. He turned to find the room completely stagnant, all staring at him.

“What the bloody hell are you all waiting for?!” he shouted. “We have pilots’ lives on the line! Get moving, people!”

The room jumped at the command and scrambled to their tasks. Emily, too, who’d been waiting in the control room with bated breath, spun on her heel and nearly flew from the room, following the armed personnel.

“Where are you going, Miss Collingwood?” Graham asked.

“With the MERT teams,” came the matter-of-fact response, heavy with conviction.

“Like hell you are,” he said, walking after her and following her out of the control room. “You are not putting yourself in the line of fire.”

“And why not?!” she cried, whipping about to stare him down. “You seem to forget, _Captain,_ that I have seen my fair share of firefights.”

“And _I_ have seen my fair share of dead men and women! Our response teams are much more trained for this than you are, and I will not have your corpse on my conscience, much less anyone else’s.”

_“I will not have Lena’s or William’s on mine!”_

Neither fear nor sadness welled in Emily’s eyes, but fury. Rage that she would be more than happy to shell out upon anyone willing to stand between her and Lena.

“I understand why you want to go, Emily, but if anyone is capable of saving Lena and William, it’s those men and women out there,” Graham said, jabbing a finger at the door to Emily’s back. His tone had softened. “If we bring Lena back, you have to be waiting for her _here,_ where you’ll be safe and sound. Not putting yourself in danger out there, on the frontlines with individuals much more trained than yourself. We have no idea what we’re up against, what these enemies of ours are capable of. We don’t even know what nation they belong to, if any at all.”

He took a placative step towards her. “You need to be here for her if and when she comes back. She needs to know that you’ll be safe. With you out there, bullets flying every which way, she doesn’t have that guarantee. Nobody does.”

Emily’s gaze fell astray in livid consideration. Her shoulders heaved, her hair shifted and weaved with her outraged respirations. Her eyes, brimming with fire, fell back upon Graham.

“If I didn’t hold you in higher regard, I might consider hoofing you in the bollocks and leaving anyway,” she hissed.

She strode past him in the complete opposite direction of the MERT teams, thankfully, in the direction of her quarters. She whipped open the doors and turned back to Captain Graham, just before disappearing down the hall.

“I want her back, Captain. I hope for your sake that those teams are as capable as you say they are.”

With that, the double-doors slammed shut behind her.

Graham sighed heavily, finding himself in an unlikely bout of doubtfulness.

 _Sometimes I wonder that I don’t give her enough credit,_ he thought to himself.

 

*******

Blackness swept across Lena’s blurred and muddled vision.

A shattered, sparking panel appeared before her, only for mere moments, before fading away again. A twinge of sharp pain coursed across her brow and down the side of her head. She hadn’t the consciousness to address it.

A muffled voice called out to her, its words obfuscated and scrambled. It grew louder with each passing utterance, the contents of the sentence becoming only marginally more decipherable.

Her head rocked like a metronome, pounded and ached like a jackhammer was beating behind her eyes, like her helmet was shrinking around her skull. She devoted what little cognizance she had to forcing herself awake, to obligate herself to understand what was being said to her.

“Lena!”

She tried and failed to comprehend the exerted calling of her name. Its urgency fell upon deaf ears.

“You gotta get up, kiddo, we’re in some dire fuckin’ straits here!”

Slowly, she pieced together the events that led to her current predicament. The collision; the destroyed ejection mechanisms; the fracturing of trees under the weight and speed of their jet, splitting trunks of pines like they were the brittle bones of the Earth.

Consciousness returned to her in a rush, and the blurry streaks fled from her vision as she blinked away the pain behind her eyes.

She groaned, forcing concentration, and responded to the frenzied voice calling her name.

“Bugger me…” she said. She pulled the helmet from her head, its cushioning brushing unpleasantly against the gash in the side of her head left by the cracked visor.

“Will, are you alright?”

“I’ve been better, I’ll be honest…”

Lena turned in a flash. She gasped in horror, finding William’s right leg mutilated, shredded by indented, crunched metal.

“Holy shit!”

The fighter’s hull had been punched in by the crash. A portion of the fuselage, made convex by one of many jarring impacts, crushed the bone and pinned William’s leg—or, more accurately, what was left of it—to the seat. His flight suit, from below his knee to just above the shard of metal embedded in his thigh, was stained red.

“Can you move?” Lena asked, immediately maligning herself for what she was certain was a stupid question.

“Not like this,” William grunted. “I’m not goin’ anywhere. We’ll have to wait for evac to help me out of this thing.”

The roar of a jet interjected. A Typhoon, to be exact. Lena’s and William’s gazes shot skyward in unison to find Argus One, Davis and Aaron, firing at airborne troops.

“Oh, fuck me…” William disdained.

“They’re coming for us,” Lena concluded. “We have to get you out of here now, no time to wait for MERT.”

“Just go, kid. No way in hell I’m moving anywhere—you need to beat it.”

“You’ve lost the plot if you think I’m ditching you here, now shut up.”

Lena’s eyes darted around the butchered remains of the cockpit, searching for any supplies that could have survived. She reached between her seat and the wall for the medical kit, extricating it from its battered confines only to discover that it, too, had been destroyed.

“Aw, shite…”

“Quit fucking about and leave, Lena!” William barked. “I’ll be fine.”

“No you bloody won’t!” she shouted back, gesturing to his leg. “I’ve seen train wrecks prettier than that!”

She glanced again around the cockpit, as feverishly as before, before descending her gaze upon William in dreaded realization.

“You are not going to like this plan,” she said, shaking her head.

“Try me.”

Lena took a deep breath, not a single part of her relishing the thought of her scheme.

“I’ll have to cut your leg off.”

William’s head fell against his seat. Not in fear or exasperation, but… laughter.

“The only thing holding me together right now’s my flight suit, anyway; bone’s nothing but powder. Besides, always kind of wanted a cybernetic. Get to be part-robot.”

“Mad bastard,” Lena chuckled. “Alright, gimme a minute.”

She twisted in her seat to hit the canopy control. When it failed to comply, she unbuckled herself from what remained of her security harness and hunched down in the seat, poising to kick the windshield from its hinges.

With a forceful push, it budged. With another, fresh air rushed through a minute opening. A third, accompanied by a swift punch to the ejection control, and the canopy flew from the jet, sailing through the air and cracking boughs of trees before crashing into the soil.

She pulled herself from the cockpit and unslung the vest from her torso, sawing off one of the straps of the harness against a sharpened spike of twisted metal. She planted her heel against the very same impromptu saw and heaved her weight against it, delivering a violent kick to snap it off from the rest of the plane.

“What’s the plan, MacGyver?” William asked.

“This,” Lena said, holding up the strap of her harness, “I’ll use as a tourniquet. I’ll strike up a fire, then heat up this ‘ere piece of metal; wrap the strap around your leg, chop it off, cauterize the wound, then drag your arse out of this wreck and onto greener pastures. Savvy?”

“You make it sound so easy,” he hissed, recoiling at the pain coursing through his body. “If you’re gonna do it, do it fast—we’re gonna have company soon.”

Lena nodded, and propelled herself from the jet and onto the dirt, adrenaline and fear compelling her to ignore the dull pain in her legs. She lit a fire as quickly as she could, carefully placing one end of the shard of metal in the centre of the flame.

Distant motion stole her attention from her survivalist medical treatment. Soldiers moved through the forest, intent on tracking down and snuffing out the wounded pilots with extreme prejudice.

Lena whispered expletives to herself before tearing her gaze from the remote activity and clamoured into the cockpit again, searching it for the weapons she desperately hoped had survived.

She pulled a rifle and a handgun from below her seat, where her feet would have been, and showed them to William.

“Baddies’re here and this is all we’ve got. Take your pick.”

William fastidiously gestured to the handgun. Lena flipped it about in her palm to hand it to him grip-first.

“I’ll wait here for you, take out any that get too close,” he said with considerable effort. His face had begun to pale.

Lena nodded, clutching the rifle in her hand and turning her gaze in the direction of the oncoming soldiers. She turned back to her battered friend and thrust a finger through the air at him for emphasis.

“I will be _right back.”_

“Sure thing. Go get ‘em, kiddo.”


	8. Tooth & Nail

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stranded and outnumbered, Lena fends off encroaching soldiers until medical evacuation arrives for her and William.

Lena commanded silence of her footfalls, stepping cautiously around any fallen branches and twigs that would betray her position. She had taken a wide berth around the area in which her and William’s hunters lurked, eyes peeled for any aberrant movement.

She fidgeted, checking and re-checking the magazine of her carbine. If she had it her way, she’d have been issued pulse munitions instead of ballistics—they were more lightweight, easier to handle, but complaints were something she had very little room for.

She ducked behind a moss-blanketed rock, peering out to scour the forest for foes. The trees thinned out the further she got from William, which was as much a blessing as it was a curse.

Less cover for her adversaries, true, but that meant less cover for her as well, and she was outnumbered as it was. The question of to what degree remained, and she dreaded the answer just as much as she wished for it.

She steadied her breath, worried that breathing too heavily would evince her location more than any snapping bark. She swept the sights of her carbine in between the wooden spires, scouting, seeking, waiting.

There.

Soldiers clad in black glided among the trees, walking apart from one another in a ten-metre spread. Lena spotted one, about thirty metres from her position. Another, twenty metres more beyond him, and two others bringing up the rear.

_I can do this. Four guys, about sixty bullets—basic math! Easy peasy!_

She leveled the barrel at the soldier closest to her, stabilizing her breathing and lining his head in the crosshairs.

In. Out. In. Out.

In. Hold. Steady.

Her finger squeezed the trigger, and—

A hail of bullets slammed into the rock directly overhead, throwing Lena to the ground in surprise. She whipped her gaze in the direction of the offending fire, behind her.

Four more men enclosed around her, weapons trained. She heard them calling out to the others she had espied from behind their haunting, villainous ballistic masks.

“Contact, contact!”

Lena kicked up dirt as she dug her heels into the ground, propelling across the forest floor. She scrambled to her feet and broke off into a retreating sprint. Bullets whipped past her and bit into the bark of surrounding trees, splinters raining down on her head as she flew through the forest.

She dove over a fallen log and pressed her back against it, breath heavy and frightened.

They could have killed her. They had her dead to rights—why bother with warning shots? Why push her back?

…They wanted to find the fighter.

Which meant they wanted its other occupant, too, not just her. They wanted her to lead them to Will.

“Alright, you bastards, let’s dance,” Lena muttered with an indignant growl, steeling herself for the hand she’d been dealt.

She spun a one-eighty on the ground and peered out through the gap between her cover and the ground upon which it rested. Her carbine split the air, its staccato reverberating throughout the trees. A burst of gunfire shredded into the legs of a pursuer, tossing him to the dirt in agony. She let fly another hail, puncturing his helmet and splitting their ranks.

Ballistics tore her concealment to wooden shreds. She rolled away from it and sprung to her feet again, darting right to circle around her adversaries. Gunfire nipped at her heels, logs splintering apart and rocks deflecting projectiles.

The warring sides traded volleys back and forth in a lethal tug of war. The violence disturbed the otherwise-bucolic stillness of the woods. Wildlife had scattered in droves, fleeing from the firefight in favour of quieter surroundings.

Lena heard rapid footsteps on approach. She leaned out from cover to find a man rushing her, raising his weapon as she peered out at him. She ducked back into her hiding place, bracing herself for a fight.

The soldier cleared the edge of Lena’s bulwark and jabbed the butt of his rifle at her head. She narrowly avoided the blow before responding in kind, plunging the stock into his ribs, only to have it smacked away. Down a weapon, Lena tried to tear the firearm from her opponent, fighting and jerking as he pinned her to the trunk of a tree.

She brought her foot down on his knee and felled him, easing his grip on the weapon enough to pry it from his hands. She turned the barrel on him and fired a fully-automatic spray, blood and chunks of bone spattering the dirt behind him.

She whipped around from behind the tree and fired at another, forcing him back. The magazine ran empty, and before she could retrieve another from the fallen soldier’s vest, she was forced to run off again, this time her wits being the only defensive capability she had in tow.

Her head hunched into her shoulders as she sprinted away from the conflict. The sound of what surely had to have been divine intervention pulled her gaze to the sky, as she heard the whirling blades of a helicopter—the telltale sound of a Chinook.

Lena smiled against the wind that rushed against her. The cavalry had arrived.

She had to get back to Will, fast.

She wound her way between the vast expanse of pines, retracing her steps as best she could to find her way back to the Typhoon. In short order, she could see the grey hull staring back at her through the gaps in the trees.

She leapt into the cockpit, digging through her pockets in a frenzy to find the strap of harness she’d ripped off.

“How’re you holding up, Wes?”

“Oh, just groovy,” he said, his head falling listlessly against his seat.

“Hey, hey, don’t pass out on me here, okay? I need you to focus, I need you to look at me.”

He nodded, dragging his head up from its perch and staring Lena in the eyes through a furrowed, sweat-drenched brow.

They could hear the cries of the soldiers in the distance, growing louder by the second—they were cutting it close.

She knotted the improvised tourniquet around his leg with a forceful tug, earning a hiss and a grunt of pain. She leapt from the plane to retrieve the plank of metal that would serve her as a makeshift cautery. Climbing back into the fighter, knife and medical metal in hand, she met William’s measure with mutual dread.

“This is going to hurt really, _really_ bad,” she warned.

“I know, Lena, just do it,” William insisted.

“You gotta do your best to stay awake, okay, chum?”

“I _know,_ Lena, _just do it.”_

She lowered the knife to his leg, just above the intruding metal, and placed her palm on its spine. It hovered there, her resolve faltering.

“I’m— _dammit_ , I’m scared, Will.”

“This is a real fuckin’ dose, kid,” William urged. “You gotta speed this along. They’ll be on us any second now.”

Lena inhaled through her nose and exhaled through her mouth, raising and lowering the blade in dreaded anticipation. She tried, over and over, but fell short. She raised the knife again, trying to build the—

 _“Quit arsing about and cut the fuckin’ thing off!”_ he roared.

Lena shouted out, more to bolster her own resolve than in retaliation of William’s ire, and cleaved the knife through his thigh. It met disturbingly-little resistance, passing through the flesh and bone with sickening ease.

She tossed the knife aside and traded it for the heated metal shard. Before William finished screaming, she pressed the cautery against the bloodied stump of his leg. It sizzled as his skin fused together, and he bellowed in agony, spewing curses that would make drunken sailors reel in revulsion.

Bullets pinged off the fuselage, forcing Lena to duck. The enemy soldiers were upon them.

William leaned to the side and returned fire, dispensing his agonized rage upon their pursuers. Lena pulled him from the seat and out of the fighter, hoisting him to his remaining foot with his arm draped over her shoulder.

“You’re doing great, big guy!” she shouted over the gunfire. “We gotta get moving!”

Lena ran as fast as she could, nearly dragging William behind her. He did his best to lay down suppressing fire, but the hobbled, breakneck sprint sent his rounds astray.

They retreated in the direction of the evacuation helicopters, the whirling of their blades and the humming of their engines a beacon. Rounds cascaded overhead, whizzing by with frightening proximity.

William fell to the earth, dragging Lena with him. The air fled Lena’s lungs as she thudded with the dirt, trying desperately to get her feet back beneath her.

“C’mon, Will, we gotta go!” she cried. “Get up!”

When he didn’t respond, and Lena noticed that he was motionless, she hoisted him over her shoulders, leapt to her feet, and ran as fast as they could carry her.

Was it adrenaline through which she found the strength to carry William? Was it anger? Fear?

Denial?

She shook the questions from her mind. All that mattered was getting home. Getting William home.

Brass rained all around her, on two separate fronts, now. Two squads had piled out of the rescue helicopters and were returning fire, laying down cover for Lena as she flew to their position.

The trees thinned out and opened up into a clearing. In its centre sat two MERT Chinooks, engines spooled and ready to mobilize on a moment’s notice. A friendly soldier to her right was cast against the floor, a bullet lodged in his shoulder.

“All aboard, Lieutenant, let’s move it!” the commanding officer called out.

She happily obliged, nearly diving into the safety of the troop cabin of the nearest helicopter. Bullets pinged of the metal hull, still flying in dogged pursuit. She was joined shortly after by one of two covering squads; the other retreated into the second Chinook, dragging their wounded companion with them.

The door slowly closed, sparks flying from its surface as gunfire ricocheted off of it into safer trajectories. Within a second of sealing shut, the helicopters rose from the ground and took off into the sky.

Lossiemouth Airfield awaited. Quite literally, they were out of the woods, and homeward bound.

Lena lay William against the seats in the cabin, tapping her palm against his cheek.

“Will!” she whispered loudly, through an exuberantly relieved smile. “Wake up, pal! We made it!”

His eyes fluttered open, halting only when they were as wide as saucers, and he slowly turned his head to greet Lena.

“We’re headed home!” she said.

He tried to smile. He really did.

What little colour remained of his pallid face fled in an instant. His head twitched and shuddered as he stared back at Lena, every fibre of his being trying to focus on _something._

The smile fell from Lena’s lips, a look of horror taking its place.

“Will?”

She glanced over to his chest to discover three crimson stains punctuating his flight suit. Beneath him, blood pooled on the seat until it spilled over.

He’d been shot.

“No…” she whispered, holding his face in her hands. He spat up blood, splattering against his bearded jaw.

“Will, I need you to stay awake, alright?! You gotta focus, you gotta stay with us here!”

He shook his head, denying the request.

“I can’t,” he heaved.

He felt heavy, like he was being pulled, dragged into the bench. Coldness nipped and gnawed at him. His head fell dully against the seat. His chest froze, rising and falling with erratic breathing no longer. His widened eyes glazed over.

“Will?!” Lena shouted, head shaking as tears welled in her eyes. “Will! _William!”_

The medical team tore her away from him, taking her place at his side. A private ushered her into a seat as the medics barked orders at the soldiers and at one another, working in frantic tandem to preserve William’s life.

Time froze. The world fell silent. Spinning rotors, blaring commands, requests of eye contact with the consoling private all blurred into a muddled aggregate. The movements of the medical officers slowed to a crawl, as if they were moving underwater, until eventually coming to a full cessation of effort.

Why had they stopped? Stopped helping, stopped trying? Why was everything frozen, suspended, stagnant?

The silence seemed to deepen. Their voices no longer sounded muffled by distance, for they simply quelled their words altogether. One of the medics placed William’s hands on his chest for him.

It dawned on Lena that their inactivity was no trick of her fractured imagination. They’d stopped working because there was nothing more for them to do.

Hopefulness turned to ash in her mouth as a cotton blanket was somberly draped over an immobile William, and gazes turned to her with exaggerated slowness and pity.

It had all been for nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know how well or not well I write sad shit, so if anyone has any input for me to take into account, let me know! I'm always more than happy to hear it.


	9. Last Post

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena returns to Lossiemouth Airfield, awaited by a mortified Emily; Squadron Six attends Will's funeral.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry.
> 
> ~~No I'm not~~

Davis burst into the room.

“MERT’s touching down,” he said, out of breath after undoubtedly flying full-tilt to deliver news of the evac team’s return, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder. “C’mon, we gotta get out there.”

Where Aaron stood from his seat, Emily launched. Had Davis not moved aside, she might have just bowled him over, judging by the determination of her stride. The two pilots followed quickly behind her, struggling to keep pace.

They emerged from the barracks, the air abuzz with the sound of helicopter blades. Two Chinooks rocketed towards them in the distance, silhouetted against the diffused orange of the evening sky. The trio surveyed the airstrip, commotion abound, and spotted Graham keeping stride and closing in.

“Helipad seven!” he barked over the clamour, pointing to his stated destination.

Emily redirected, sacrificing no expedition and sparing no speed. Aaron and Davis brought up the rear, several strides behind.

The Chinooks nosed up, slowing to a crawl before fastidiously descending. Their wheels touched down with a screech and a thud, and the ramp opened up.

Crowds gathered in the distance, watching with bated breath as their pilots returned home, hoping for the best. Flight technicians and medical staff converged on the helicopters, waiting impatiently for the return party to disembark.

Emily saw their faces grow grim, and they parted so that a gurney could float down the boarding ramp, guided by stoic medical officers and soldiers.

Her heart sank. Breath caught in her lungs, the same as the words that hitched in her throat. She stared in unblinking, smothering dread as her hair flew in tumultuous waves, stirred by the gust of the rotors.

She couldn’t see them, but she knew Davis and Aaron were in as much shock as she was.

Which paled in comparison to what Lena was feeling.

A black blanket, stained with blood that was not her own and nearly imperceptible in its cotton, was draped over her shoulders. She clutched it tightly, fastening it to her arms. Two soldiers guided her out of the passenger cabin with consoling hands on her shoulders.

Lena turned to find Emily standing there, staring in dismayed awe with Davis and Aaron some feet behind her. Behind them, in the distance, Captain Graham halted the officers guiding the gurney to ask who they’d lost. They shared some words before he peeled the blanket from the gurney’s occupant, sadness painting its strokes even on _his_ stone-like, resolute features.

The helicopters’ blades whirred to a halt, and an eerie silence pervaded the airfield. A stillness of sound broken only by a fractured, sheepish damnation.

“I couldn’t save him, Em,” Lena whimpered, a fully-fledged breakdown lying in ambush behind every word. “…Will’s gone.”

Emily strode towards her, and the soldiers parted to give them both the space they needed. She wrapped Lena in her arms and pulled her close, burying her face in her sweat-matted hair.

“I couldn’t save him,” Lena repeated.

Emily was seldom speechless. She was possessed of a lexicon varied and abundant, with a whip-like wit and a learned mind to go with it. And yet, here she was, robbed of it all.

What could she possibly say to that?

She felt Lena lurch and sob against her, words swallowed by grief. Arms lazily draped around her, deprived of strength and liveliness both. She held her tighter, knowing that was all she could do.

Davis approached them next. Aaron followed shortly thereafter. They each huddled around Lena, holding and comforting—or trying desperately to—all at once.

“I tried,” Lena lamented. “I did everything I could, I-I tried so hard, and… I couldn’t _bloody_ do it…”

“This isn’t your fault, sweetheart,” Davis said, grief creeping beneath his words as well. “You did all you could. You can’t be held accountable for that.”

She wanted to argue. She wanted to _scream_ at him about how wrong he was. About how she could have saved Will’s life if she had just tried a little bit harder, done just a little bit more… but she hadn’t the energy. Instead, she stood there and wept.

The medical staff intervened as politely as they could after some time, requesting that Lena follow them for a check-up. Emily went with her, after parting from Aaron and Davis with a consoling hug.

The two of them stood there, watching them go as Graham approached. He and Lena’s eyes met, and he gave her a simple nod. She understood.

“I’ll not ask how the two of you are doing,” he said as he neared. “You have as much time as you need. You’re officially on shore leave, no objections.”

Davis clearly wanted to, but stayed his tongue.

“Thank you, sir.”

Another nod. “I’ll call his family. Tell them what’s happened. In the meantime, you two get some rest. Give Lena some space for now.”

“Will do, sir. Thank you again.”

           

*******

Lena hated funerals.

If she had it her way, she’d mourn for William on her own time in her own way—with Davis, Aaron, Emily, and hell, maybe even the Captain, with a drink in her hand raised in commemoration for the friendship she and Will had shared. Attending macabre, teary-eyed, hours-long affairs made her stomach turn. Nor did she have much of a penchant for dressing up, regardless of the type of formal function she be required to attend.

But she owed it to Will’s family to be there, and she owed it to Will. Even if he detested funerals as much as she did.

Emily pulled the gold-hemmed cuffs of Lena’s dress uniform taut, as she did her tie, and smoothed the wrinkles from her collar.

“You look quite dashing in full regalia,” Emily said with a small smile.

Lena exhaled a tired laugh and shook her head, staring beyond Emily’s shoulder. “Wish I was wearing it for a better reason.”

Emily’s gaze saddened, and she pressed a kiss to Lena’s forehead.

“I know you do.”

She lifted a small case from the table to her left and opened it, revealing a silver cross with a crown in the centre set atop a wreath. Folded beneath it lay a white ribbon, blue stripes on its flanks and a red down the middle. She pinned it to Lena’s chest.

“How’s it look on me?” Lena asked.

Emily cocked her head to the side and pursed her lips, scrutinizing the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross.

“Almost as beautiful as the young woman who earned it,” she said after some examination.

Lena smiled as she felt a blush creep across her features. It was heartwarming, as luminous as it always was… but there was something about it. Something indicative in her otherwise exclusively-blithe grin.

“You don’t feel like you deserve it, do you?” Emily asked.

Lena sighed. She couldn’t hide a damn thing from her—it was unfair, frankly.

“No. No, I don’t.”

She strode past Emily to stare beyond the glass of their lofty hotel room to the street below. It would have been easier to say it to the passersby, deaf to her confession, but she turned to Emily again regardless.

“They should have given it to me if I’d saved Will. Not… not for trying and failing. It feels like a pity award. Like some cheap, plastic gold star you get just for trying.”

She turned back to the view of the street. “I always dreamed of getting a medal. Having a whole array of them hanging from my chest for amazing things I’d done, for people I’d saved and for lives I’d made better. Instead, I got one for screwing up… I got one for getting Will killed.”

She may as well have plunged a knife in Emily’s chest; the poor thing held herself at fault for Will’s death. Self-condemnation for being unable to save someone was a beast of its own, but for Lena to think that she had all but killed William herself?

It wasn’t fair. Lena was too good a person to have such feelings thrust upon her by the world and its tragedies.

Emily approached her in silence and draped her arms over her shoulders and around her neck. She pressed her cheek against Lena’s head, and held her tight.

“You put your own life on the line to save Will,” she began. “Anyone else would have thought he was doomed, heeded his advice, and ran, but you didn’t. You put yourself under fire against odds you knew nothing about to save your friend. Graham is proud of you for that, Davis and Aaron are proud of you for that, _I’m_ proud of you for that, and Will was proud of you for that.”

She turned Lena around to face her, not at all surprised to find an absence of tears on her cheeks—she knew how brave her girl was.

“He loved you. You could tell by the way he talked about you, the way he walked with you, the way he laughed with you— _that’s_ what this medal is for. For the love you evoke from everyone you meet, and for refusing to give up on them even in the darkest hour. Will would be proud to see that medal pinned to your chest.”

Lena allowed herself a small smile, and exhaled a gentle sigh. That was another thing about Emily she found so frustratingly incredible—she always knew exactly what needed to be said. And she was always right.

“I really love you, d’you know that?”

Emily’s lips parted in a bright white smile, before pressing them to Lena’s. She withdrew, and held her face in her hands.

“Funny, I was about to say the same thing.”

They waited in a silence made much less tense by their discussion for Aaron and Davis to arrive out front, and entered the vehicle. The uncomfortable silence returned then, strangling the air and quelling all thoughts of conversation on the way to Saint Patrick’s Cathedral.

Will’s folks, in conjunction with Captain Graham, had pulled out all the stops when arranging his funeral. Lena allowed herself some humour at the thought of how Will would react upon discovering he was to be buried there—he’d probably find it quite fitting, being the devout practitioner that he was within St. Patty’s sphere of influence.

They exited the vehicle, having arrived at the cathedral. Davis and Aaron similarly wore their dress blues, sporting a few medals themselves, along with a spectrum of ribbons. Emily was clad in a simple sleeveless black dress, looking characteristically beautiful even on a day as somber as this one.

“I’ll go find myself a seat inside,” she said, giving Lena’s hand a comforting squeeze. “Do a spot of mingling.”

Lena nodded, they kissed, and went their separate ways for the time being. She turned to her comrades.

“Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be for something this shitty,” Aaron disdained.

Davis gave them both a pat on their shoulders. “Will’s waiting for us. Let’s not let him down, eh?”

“Best not, we’re the ones carrying the casket.”

They made their way through the crowd and located the other pallbearers, standing with Captain Graham—Will’s brother Michael, his friend Cory, and a technician from Lossiemouth Airfield that Lena had met a few times in Will’s company by the name of Teddy.

The hearse carrying William’s casket slowed to a halt at the curb shortly after. They unloaded the coffin, draped with a Union Jack as per the code of practice for fallen RAF pilots, and hoisted it onto their shoulders. Davis, Aaron and Lena stood to its right, Cory, Michael and Teddy on its left, and Graham leading them into the cathedral.

Lena felt a suffocating discomfort as she led Will’s body through the melancholic stares and pervading silence of the main hall. By how much thought she was devoting to not looking anywhere but directly in front of her, right in between Davis’s shoulder blades, it was a wonder she didn’t forget what she was doing altogether.

They approached an altar, the temporary resting place for the casket, and set it down. With nary a step out of line, they filed down the steps and into their seats.

Emily greeted Lena with a warming smile and gripped her hand as she sat down. Lena surveyed the crowd as the Minister began his speech.

Will’s mother, Beth, who Lena had met several times beforehand and absolutely adored; his sister, Elizabeth, who Will affectionately referred to as Lizzy; a cavalcade of family friends and men and women from the RAF; and even a sizeable number of strangers come to pay their respects to a man who served his country and friends with a smile on his face.

Lena must have zoned out, because it took Emily lightly nudging her elbow to make her realize it was already time for her to head up to the podium and say her peace.

_Showtime, I guess,_ she fretted.

She approached, swallowed her discomfort, smoothed out her script on the podium, and began.

“Will and I really hit it off. Right from the moment I arrived at Lossiemouth, I could tell he and I were gonna be great mates. One of the first things we shared together was a laugh, when I’d made a joke about Captain Graham being terrifying—sorry, Cap, it was my first day, you see—and he replied by saying, ‘Don’t worry about it, kiddo, the old bugger could scare the nuts off a gnat.’

“When you were in his company, all the stresses of the day, all the frustration—it all vanished. His vivaciousness, his heartwarming affability, and his sense of humour all left you with a smile on your face and a spring in your step.

“I could always confide in him, right from that fateful day two years ago when I met him. If ever I needed an ear to listen, advice to adhere to, or a pal to share a drink—or five with, because we _are_ talking about Will here—he was always there, no matter where you were, what you were doing, or what day of the week it was.

“He was the type of guy who’d have your back even if the whole world was against you. He was a voice of reason, a force to be reckoned with, a big old bloody ray of sunshine, and a friend as loyal as they come. Which is why I haven’t just lost a friend… I lost a brother.”

She turned to the casket, and stared at it for a three-second silence, before ending her speech.

“I love you, Will.”

She left the podium to the sound of sniffling and shaky breathing, seating herself once again beside Emily, who herself was smiling through a teary-eyed expression.

“That was really beautiful, Lena,” she whispered.

Lena would have liked to share her enthusiasm. Instead, she simply nodded and returned a smile as Emily leaned her head against her shoulder.

Lena hadn’t shed a tear. Not in the days leading up to the funeral, not throughout the procession itself, nothing. Not a drop. The event went on without even a welling in her eyes—she’d cried all she could.

Or so she thought, until the clarion tones of a troupe of bagpipes serenading Amazing Grace jerked her from her absent-mindedness. It took everything she had to refrain, but it was for naught.

Stupid bagpipes got her every time, damn it.


	10. Opportunities

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Graham receives a peculiar, but very intriguing email; Lena is called to Graham's office for a discussion on an opportunity regarding her future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You've had enough Sad Lena for now, here's Happy Lena.
> 
> (Also just as an aside for those who don't know, I believe Białowieża is pronounced bya-yo-vitch-kuh. This will make sense in a few minutes)

Oh, the mundanity of poring over morning messages. How maddening it was.

Graham had had the same morning routine for the past two decades: head to the airfield, curate analytics for the met briefs, arrange the flight programs, leave instructions for the formation leaders—

—And, his least favourite part of it all, sifting through the day’s emails.

Updates on the same airframes every day, changes to be made to and occasionally rescinded from the air ranks and commander appointments of his peers and superiors, amendments to ISTAR intelligence—all ostensibly interesting things, but, as with anything, the practice of reviewing them each morning of each day eventually wore the mind thin.

Again, he reminded himself how much easier his life would be if he’d just apply for a damn secretary, but he’d end up spending more time worrying they’d screw something up than he would just doing it all himself.

Stubborn? Most likely. A touch on the pissy side? Possible. He preferred to think of it as being set in his ways.

Twenty years was quite the timeframe over which to build up an efficient routine. Might as well keep up with it.

He dismissed for the umpteenth time the thought of relegating his duties as he parked his vehicle in his specified spot in the car lot. Entering his office, he pulled the holotablet from his desk drawer, dancing his fingertips across its surface to access his private email as the screen came to life. He’d been expecting word from Air Commodore Royce regarding—

…Well. _That_ certainly was a welcome change to the morning routine.

Not the reply he’d been expecting from Royce, no, but an email with a label reading “[TOP SECRET]”, tailored to _his_ specific level of security clearance and sent to him by a name he didn’t immediately recognize.

He opened it after a brief pause, taken aback by it, and in the centre of the top of the page sat an emblem. A circular logo with two prongs in its centre, and an orange segment at its apex.

Unmistakable. This was an email from Overwatch.

Graham scrutinized the message’s contents.

_Captain Graham,_

_Overwatch has had its eyes turned to Lossiemouth Airfield for quite some time now. You and your pilots have established quite a reputation for yourselves. It’s for this reason that I’ll exercise brevity and get right to the point._

_We have a new program underway—an experimental fighter utilizing quantum leap technology, real bleeding edge stuff. I’ll not pretend to understand much of it myself, but our tech division certainly is chomping at the bit to get it in the air. I’d prefer to discuss more details in person—such as who’ll be the one to fly her, as per your recommendation—so should you be interested, I’ll arrange a meeting for us and head on up there myself._

_I hope to hear from you soon._

_Strike Commander Jack Morrison_

 

 

Graham tossed the tablet onto the surface of his desk and eased into his chair with a sigh. He stared thoughtfully at the ceiling of his antiquated office, bewildered by what he’d just read.

He didn’t know that Overwatch _had_ an aviation division. Though that was the nature of the organization, he supposed.

And what an organization it was. Overwatch— _Overwatch_ , the ones responsible for ending the Crisis, for bringing more peace to the world than it had known in far too long, for spearheading some of the greatest medical and scientific developments in the modern era—was personally interested in him and his pilots.

He retrieved the holotablet from his desk, pulled up the email, took a deep breath through a humoured grin, and began his response.

_Commander, do I have a pilot for you._

*******

“ _Flight Lieutenant Oxton, please report to the Group Captain’s office. Flight Lieutenant Oxton to the Group Captain’s office._ ”

Emily turned back to Lena and wiggled her eyebrows at her, peering at her over her interlocked hands. “Better get over there, troublemaker.”

Lena laughed in return and stood from her seat, lifting Emily’s lips to hers as she passed. “Back in a bit.”

She strolled confidently from the mess hall to the administrative wing, winding through the halls to Graham’s office. Things had been quiet as of late—she wondered what the call could have been for. She’d heard talk of possible amendments to the airframe stress tests, so perhaps this was going to be a briefing thereof.

She’d find out soon enough—she twisted the doorknob and entered Graham’s office, snapping to attention before she noticed the two blue coats in the chairs before his desk.

“You wanted to—” she began, before her distinguishing of the pair’s identities cut her off.

“At ease, Lieutenant,” Graham said. He swept a hand across the two seated before him. “There’s some people I’d like you to meet, and who are equally anxious to meet you.”

Finally, they turned, and now Lena knew for _sure_ that it was _definitely_ them.

The man on the left had a head of hair as blonde as wheat, and strong features. He was somewhat intimidating, for which he was kindred spirits with Captain Graham. The woman on his right had bronze skin and an unmistakable tattoo beneath her left eye. A thick braid trailed out from beneath her blue beret and draped over her shoulder.

“Jack Morrison and Ana Amari,” Lena awed. She stood straighter, somehow, and shook the astonishment from her face. “I-It’s an honour to meet you both!”

Captain Amari’s face alighted, and a discreet grin played across Commander Morrison’s face.

“You know who we are, Flight Lieutenant?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am!” Lena replied, nodding emphatically. “You two lead Overwatch—you’re heroes, both of you!”

Captain Amari tossed her head back in laughter. “Always lovely to meet a fan. I imagine you’re curious as to what we’re doing here. Care to tell her yourself, Jack?”

“Overwatch is in the middle of constructing an experimental fighter,” he began as he turned to a still-amazed Lena. “We call it the Slipstream. It makes use of a special chronal drive to make quantum leaps—essentially, a teleporting jet, the first of its kind. The world hasn’t seen anything like it before, so we need the best of the best behind the steering wheel. We came to Captain Graham to see if he had any idea as to who that was, and, well, here we are.”

“…Y-You want _me_ to fly it?” Lena whispered.

“Not _just_ fly the plane, Flight Lieutenant,” he corrected. “We’ve heard a few stories about you. We want you to join Overwatch.”

Lena had the necessary g-force training to keep her from feinting in a cockpit, but in a situation like this? Here, now? She wasn’t so sure.

“I’d be a member of Overwatch?” she asked.

“Quite the title to put on a résumé, hm?” Captain Amari asked.

“Like, an Overwatch Pilot?”

“An Overwatch Pilot,” Morrison echoed.

“Like _actually_ an—”

“ _Yes,_ yes, Lena, yes, you would be a fully-fledged member of Overwatch,” Graham barked. “The youngest ever to be inducted into the aviation program. One of the first to begin with, at that: the program is still very new, as I understand it.”

Lena considered falling into the chair next to her. She almost failed to suppress hysterics, grinning madly. She ran a hand through her tumultuous hair, shaking her head in disbelief.

“I’d—I’d _love_ to!” She began to pace. “This is—Overwatch are my heroes! This is like, my _dream!”_ She stood again at attention, assuming a façade of control and snapping a salute so quickly it could have concussed her. “Sirs, I’d be honoured to.”

Captain Amari laughed again. It was quite a beautiful sound, next to Commander Morrison’s gruff chuckling. “We’re very happy to hear that, Lena. You’ll be relocating at the end of the month. Captain Graham, Commander Morrison and myself will handle the details of your transfer, don’t worry.”

Lena nodded enthusiastically once again, smiling so wide her cheeks were bunching up beneath her eyes. “I’ll start packing right away! Thank you again, thank you _so much!”_

She flew to the exit, her hurried footsteps audible as she rocketed down the hall, punctuated by a muffled “Holy _shit!”_ when she thought she was far enough out of earshot.

The trio of officers shared a laugh, and Jack directed his attention to Captain Graham once again.

“You’re sure she isn’t too young, Captain?” he asked through a grin.

“Youth does not constitute inexperience, Jack,” Amari reminded.

“You’re right,” he said, nodding in concession. “Just want to be sure we’re making the right decision here.”

Graham saw an opportunity.

He took a deep breath, laced his fingers together, and leaned his elbows against his desk.

“Let me tell you another story about her, sir,” he began. “A few months ago, we responded to an alert about a flight of unidentified aircraft over the Polish-Belarusian border. Flight Lieutenant Oxton and her squad mates answered the call and were mobilized well within the hour.”

“I remember hearing about that,” Amari said. “The Polish Air Force grounded and captured a bomber they later identified as a Talon craft.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Graham confirmed. “The very same organization you and your men have been clashing with for years—I’ve heard the reports. Highly-trained, calculating, ruthless, cold-blooded killers.

“Flight Lieutenant Oxton, and her wingman, William O’Keefe, had a collision with one of the enemy fighters. They crash-landed in the middle of the Białowieża Forest. Flight Lieutenant O’Keefe was gravely injured in the crash: a chunk of the fuselage had been punched in during the impact and mutilated one of his legs. Then, that very same Talon bomber you mentioned deployed airborne troops on them.

“Oxton fought back. She thinned their numbers until she was forced to fall back to the crash site, buying enough time for MERT to arrive. She cut off O’Keefe’s leg, cauterized the wound with a shard of metal in a campfire, and _carried_ him to the evac zone. He was shot while he was on her shoulders, and died on the helicopter ride back home.”

Morrison and Amari sat in silence, listening with intent and hanging on every word. Their faces grew grave at the conclusion of Graham’s story.

“That young woman out there,” he continued, gesturing pointedly to the door, “committed an act of such heroism that I pinned the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross on her myself. Lena Oxton is not just the kind of pilot you need—she’s the kind of _soldier_ you need. The kind of _person_ you need. Hell, if I was more selfish, I’d have declined your offer altogether so I could keep her here myself.”

Morrison gave a thoughtful chuckle at that as his gaze fell to the floor. His brow knit together as he cursed himself for doubting her because of her age, even if it had been for just a moment.

“You don’t pick favourites, do you, Captain?” Morrison ascertained.

“No sir. I give credit where credit is due.”

“Then I think we’ve heard all we needed to,” Amari said. “The Slipstream has her pilot.”


	11. The Cycle of History

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena arrives at Watchpoint: Geneva; Emily arranges for herself, Davis and Aaron to do the same; Lena takes a fabled test flight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY THERE LONG TIME NO SEE LET'S FUCKIN' DO THIS SHALL WE

“Here’s how the Slipstream will work, Flight Lieutenant…” Doctor Viktov began. Lena got the impression his explanation would be a long-winded one.

The verbose doctor pressed the palm of his hand to the handprint verification terminal to the left of a set of large double doors. The doors hissed open, and he led Lena into a cavernous, sterile-white laboratory. It was abuzz with activity—Lena imagined that was typical.

Mathematicians, engineers, chemists, mechanics—great minds from all walks of life worked in cohesive unison. Robotic quadrupeds strutted about the lab, some ferrying supplies, others on excursions of their own volition. A Tobelstein Reactor the size of a car drifted across the ceiling, suspended from an automated rail.

“Now,” Viktov continued as Lena damned herself for missing part of his explanation, “the Tachyon Field will need to be projected with the Hilbert Space vector relative to the numbers you enter into the drive console in mind, so it is _paramount_ that they are inputted correctly. The computer will do all the calculations, you just need to plug in the proper coordinates, so, no typos.”

The two of them entered an elevator whose grey metal tones were a welcome change to the harsh asepticism of the manufacturing lab. The second the doors were sealed, the clamour of the massive, bustling room fell silent.

“Finally,” he went on as the doors parted, welcoming them to a labyrinth of hallways that were just as busy as the lab they had left, “your flight suit is insulated with microscopic particle emitters to protect you from beta decay. The readings the drive will pull will come from your flight suit, because, given the rather blunt nature of the Slipstream drive’s function, your W and Z boson levels are going to fluctuate quite drastically; the flight suit will emit W and Z boson levels of its own to counteract this effect and keep your bosonic constant… well, constant.”

They were now walking the halls of the residential wing, made apparent by the numerous dormitories lining the long stretches of hallways. A pair of men in technicians’ coveralls passed them by, discussing whatever it was that was on the clipboard they were poring over.

They came to a T-junction and nearly bumped into what Lena had not immediately recognized as a human being _,_ until further inspection. She craned her head up at an uncomfortable angle to apologize for the near-collision with the brute of a man, to which he gave an indignant huff and thumped off. His bulky, bulbous red armour took up the span of an entire hallway, and obscured his shaven, scarred head from vision when he turned away.

“Who was _that?”_ she said aghast. She’d never seen such a man before.

“I believe his name is ‘Earthquake’ or ‘Thunderclap,’ or something to that effect. I’m fairly sure the moniker was _his_ idea.”.

Lena snickered at that, and turned to find that the unimaginative hulk had disappeared to another part of the wing. Were oddities like that normal around here? Watchpoint: Geneva was a hell of a place—she supposed she shouldn’t have been too surprised.

Viktov led her to a door, evidently the terminus of the tour, as it was marked with her name.

“Here are your quarters, Flight Lieutenant,” he said. “Is there any part of my explanation you’d like me to repeat for you? It was rather long-winded, I must admit.”

Lena chuckled, and decided against agreeing with him. “I got the gist, I think. Thanks, Doc. Any reading material you can recommend for me? Thinking I should brush up on my quantum mechanics.”

“Excellent idea!” Viktov said. “I can recommend some research papers to you if you’d like. Philippe Blanchard and Erwin Brüning’s ‘ _Mathematical Methods in Physics’_ could prove quite useful to you. Additionally, we also have an on-site library, if you prefer more traditional reading. Might I suggest some works on Euclidean geometry, as well? When you have a moment, pick up a translation of ‘ _Elements’—_ ”

“Careful, Oxton; get him going and you’ll be there all day.”

Lena and Viktov turned in unison to the new speaker. Upon finding it was Commander Morrison, Lena stood at attention and snapped a crisp salute.

“Sir!”

“At ease, Lieutenant,” he said as he approached. He gave Doctor Viktov an endearing pat on the shoulder. “I trust the good doctor here has given you a warm welcome?”

“Yes, sir,” Lena said. “Very much, sir. He’s been a great host. Everyone has—this place is…” She shook her head, trying to find the words to accurately describe her reverence of the facility, and indeed, her involvement in it, but she fell short. “It’s incredible. I’ve never seen anything like it. Really, it’s an honour to be here. Thank you, again.”

She turned her eyes to the woman standing to the left of Commander Morrison. A doctor by the look of it, if her lab coat and clipboard were any indication. Shoulder-length blonde hair, sharp blue eyes, and a soothing countenance underpinned by... something harsh, almost. Perhaps “experience” was the word for it?

“Sorry, ma’am, we’ve not met yet,” Lena said, offering a hand. “Flight Lieutenant Lena Oxton at your service!”

The woman followed suit and gave a smile. Her grin was radiant, enough that it overshadowed any harshness that Lena had perceived.

“Doctor Angela Ziegler,” she said. “A pleasure, Lena. Both Commander Morrison and Captain Amari have told me much about you. You’ve quite a reputation!”

Lena felt herself blushing. “Hopefully I’ll live up to it soon enough.”

“Notoriety like yours doesn’t happen overnight,” Morrison said. “We all have faith that you’ll meet expectations without breaking a sweat.”

Where would that faith go if he were to see that Lena was sweating already?

“You’re going to terrify her, Commander,” Viktov laughed. He must have read Lena’s mind. He turned back to her, placing a hand on her shoulder. “You’ll do just fine. Everyone here is more than happy to help you along your way, don’t worry, Lena.”

She laughed—more a relieved exhalation—and nodded. “Thanks, Sergei. Think I’ll get settled in.” She turned to the Commander and gave a brisk salute. “Sir.”

He returned it, and turned her loose. She took her leave of the group, as did Doctor Viktov with a bow of his head.

“Full of vim and vigour, that one,” Doctor Ziegler said. “She seems to be a nice young girl.”

“A young girl who’s just about our only hope of having the Slipstream ready for field deployment in time,” Morrison said as he turned on his heel. Doctor Ziegler followed him.

“Do you doubt her, Jack?”

He shook his head. “Not at all. I think she’ll be ready in plenty of time. I just hope she thinks so too.”

 

*******

“Miss Collingwood, if I pull any more strings, I’ll be a bloody puppeteer.”

Emily laughed at that. Captain Graham had done plenty of favours in the past for Lena and the bunch, for which he had garnered some scorn from among his peers, so she had to admit that he was allowed some apprehension at this point.

“You’d hardly be pulling any at all, Captain,” she argued anyway. “Overwatch hosts tours of its headquarters all the time. Show the people around your extensive on-site medical and technological research facilities, and you’ll get nothing but praise—it’s a PR thing. For Davis, Aaron and I to pay a visit to Lena would be a drop in the bucket.”

“That’s easy for you to say, being in the position that you are,” he calmly retaliated. “Which is to say, _not mine._ ”

Emily smirked devilishly. She was nothing if not prepared.

“I thought you’d say something like that.”

She reached into that bag she had set on the floor beside her when she entered Graham’s office and pulled a large brown bottle from its fabric confines. She held it aloft by the neck, gesturing to it with her other hand as if it were on a showcase.

“Forty Creek Barrel Select. Canadian whiskey. Hints of vanilla, caramel and honey, combined with toasted oak, spice and walnut. Bold, rich flavour profile with a smooth, satisfying finish. Aged _fifty-three years._ ”

Graham sat stone-still, betraying nothing with the disinterested stare that danced between Emily and the bottle she held. His middle and forefinger were pressed to his temple as he leaned an elbow against the armrest of his chair.

He heaved a sigh. “I will see what I can do.” He found himself saying that more and more these days.

Emily laughed triumphantly, and placed the bottle on Graham’s desk. “Who knew a respected RAF Captain would be so susceptible to bribery?”

“ _Out_ ,” he said, pointing to the door.

Emily grinned widely and bowed her head. “Thank you for your time and co-operation, Captain.” With that, she left the room.

Graham eyed the bottle on his desk in silence, staring it down for several seconds before allowing himself a genuine chuckle.

Well played, Collingwood. Very well played indeed.

 

*******

Lena’s leg wouldn’t stop bouncing. She was deaf to the rhythmic, obnoxious rattle of her chair as she gazed into fretful nothingness.

Tomorrow. After months of training, researching, testing and training again, tomorrow was the day. The day Lena Oxton, fighter pilot famed in every corner of the Royal Air Force and the youngest to ever be inducted into the esoteric aviation branch of Overwatch, would have her hands on the helm of a quantum fighter jet the likes of which the world had never seen.

No pressure.

“Lena, you’ve not said a word since you sat down,” Angela said. Lena’s eyes shot up from the mug in her hands.

“Hm? Oh, sorry, Angie.” She smiled nervously and stared into the dregs of her mostly-spilled coffee. “Just thinkin’ about tomorrow is all.”

“Nervous?” Angela knew the answer, but asked anyway. Lena simply nodded in silence.

Angela deliberated on her choice of words as she glanced around the café. The place was so drenched in the hallmarks of ordinary life that it was sometimes easy to forget that they were still on-site at an advanced paramilitary research and development facility.

Finally, she set her hand on Lena’s, which conclusively got her full attention.

“You can do it,” she began. “I know you can. More importantly, _you_ know you can. You’re just afraid because Morrison, Amari and Reyes will be watching.”

“Well actually I’m a tad more worried about quantumly disassembled, but yeah, Reyes scares me a little.”

Angela laughed her song-like laugh. “Let him hear you say that, and you may just get him to crack a smile. Listen, Lena; you’ve been through a lot. You’ve accomplished a lot. I’ve read your file—how scared were you when you first arrived at Lossiemouth? When you had your first test flight? Your first crash? How scared were you in that forest with William?”

Lena’s eyes darted back to Angela at the mention of Will’s name. They met the table next. “Terrified…”

“And yet you’ve been able to accomplish all that you have. You’ve made it this far through sheer force of will. For there to be courage, there must be fear first. It’s what makes courage so admirable.”

She squeezed her hand tighter, and felt Lena squeeze back. “You can do this. We believe in you.”

Lena smiled brightly. She felt tension lift from her shoulders, felt the tightness disperse from her chest. For Angela to be able to do that for her through words alone was testament to her capability in her field.

She was about to thank her for alleviating her fears when she heard the buzzing of Angela’s cell phone. Angela pulled it from her pocket and scrutinized the notification on the screen, before grinning from ear-to-ear. “Speaking of which, someone is here to see you.”

“Really?” Lena asked as she cocked her head to the side. “Who?”

“Let’s find out, shall we?”

They finished their coffee and left the café. Angela led Lena to the courtyard at the entrance of Watchpoint: Geneva, grinning all the while, where a limousine was parked beside Commander Morrison’s towering stone twin.

No security detail, so it likely wasn’t a diplomatic meeting. Someone still important enough to earn a ride here in a limo, though, so who the hell could it be?

Lena got her answer when a skinny, hawkish Stonehavener with a disgruntled look that betrayed his true, friendly nature, a black man from East End London with an unmistakable pearl-white grin and patchy beard, and a stunning woman with long, winding locks of red hair, far from her hometown of Thame, stepped from the vehicle.

“Is that Overwatch Fighter Pilot Lena “Tracer” Oxton I see standing before me?” Davis said through a smile.

“Can’t be, this‘un’s too short, ” Aaron chimed in.

“Last few months have been good to you, Flight Lieutenant,” Emily said, barely containing laughter.

Lena met them with the same blithe measure as Davis, and spiraled into hysterical laughter. “No way! _No way!”_

She ran shrieking into the trio’s midst. She hurled herself at Emily, felt her arms enfold her as she breathed deep the long-missed scent of peppermint and cinnamon, and heard her euphonic laughter ringing in her ears.

Davis and Aaron followed, and she soon found herself in the middle of a mosh pit. The months had been long without Davis’s wit, Aaron’s snark and Emily’s charm. The months had been long indeed.

“How did you guys manage this?!” Lena shouted. “Cap worked his magic, didn’t he?!”

“You guessed it,” Aaron said. “Our girl Em here bribed him.”

“Come off it!”

“It’s true,” Emily confirmed. “Gave him a bottle of rye.”

The adage, “the more things change, the more they stay the same,” swiftly came to mind.

“Come on, come on, I gotta show you guys around and introduce you to everyone!” Lena urged. She took Emily’s hand and yanked her along, as she always did when she got excited.

She led them through the manufacturing lab, the library, the barracks, the training grounds, the lounge; showed them the nuclear reactor, the particle accelerator—the same things that amazed her when she first arrived she could now share that same exuberance for with her closest of friends.

Last but not least, of course, was the Slipstream Hangar. She stopped them at the door and turned to face them.

“Before we go in here,” she said, “I will be in _right shit_ if anything about this thing gets out. Seriously, this _has_ to stay quiet.”

“They made us sign a non-disclosure agreement before we got here,” Aaron said. “None too keen on pissin’ off black-tie assassins for flappin’ my gums, Lena. Let’s see ‘er.”

Pleased with the answer, Lena smiled and widened her eye before the retinal scanner on the wall. It responded with a melodic beep and a blink of green light before the doors parted.

There she was.

Emily, Aaron and Davis followed Lena into the hangar with shared awe. Catwalks spanned the length of the room, and from them hung pieces of the Slipstream like a three-dimensional puzzle.

A crewman gestured for his co-workers to ease the teleportation matrix into its housing. As it was guided towards the chassis, the air around it warped and wavered. It passed in front of a bystanding mechanic, whose actions seemed to slow to a crawl when viewed through the distortion.

“There she is, lads,” Lena said, her arms gesturing grandiosely. “My new kite.”

She turned to find her entourage slack-jawed and speechless. She laughed at their astonishment, more than proud that she could say she was to be its pilot.

“When’s the flight?” Emily asked.

“Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?! The thing’s in pieces!”

“They were running some final diagnostics on the teleportation matrix, but it looks like everything’s wrapped up. They’ll have it reassembled by four o’clock.”

Emily exhaled a laugh. “That’s amazing…”

“That’s all well and good, sure,” Davis said, “but this tour of yours has left me Hank Marvin. How’s the food around ‘ere?”

“Oh, it’s bloody _top_ ,” Lena assured. “You lads can find the mess hall, though, I wanna show Em one more thing.”

The two left Davis and Aaron to their own devices, and went to Lena’s quarters instead. She pulled Emily inside and sat her on the bed, gesturing for her to stay put.

“What are you up to?” Emily asked.

“Just hold on!” Lena shouted from the bathroom.

Emily sat arms crossed and smiling, until Lena emerged from the bathroom minutes later in full fighter pilot regalia.

A blue flight suit with a black mid-drift, and a bright orange flight vest in keeping with Overwatch’s signature colour scheme. The shoulders were padded with Kevlar discs boasting the organization’s logo.

Lena held her arms wide, and spun on her heel. “Whaddya think? Pretty cool, right?”

“You of all people know I _love_ a woman in uniform, Lena,” Emily purred, “but it’s… missing something.”

Struck by an idea, she reached into the plastic bag she’d been carrying with her that Lena had been too excited to inquire about and pulled a box from it. She set it on the bed and tossed the lid aside, holding aloft a white fleece scarf.

“I got this for you. Figured I should bring you a little something,” she said as she draped it around Lena’s neck. She looped it once and let the slack hang freely. “There! Perfect.”

“I love it!” said Lena. She ran back into the bathroom to inspect it further in the mirror. “That looks great, thanks, love!”

Too absorbed in her examination of the gift, she was caught off-guard when Emily yanked her by its fabric back into the main room, and with her onto the bed without another word.

The months had been long indeed.

 

*******

“Tracer, this is ATC,” Commander Morrison said into the microphone. “How are the pre-flights coming along?”

“ _ATC, Tracer here.”_ Lena’s voice echoed throughout the control tower for all to hear. “ _Just fine, sir. Gust lock is off, control surfaces are green; engines are fired up._ ”

It always thrilled Emily to hear Lena in her element. The stoic professionalism when in the cockpit was a stark contrast to her near-childlike giddiness when out of it.

Emily, Davis and Aaron were allowed entry to the control tower to watch the Slipstream in action. They stood side-by-side, waiting for history to happen. Waiting for Lena to _make_ it happen.

“Glad to hear it, Flight Lieutenant,” Morrison responded. “You’re cleared for takeoff; let’s get this show on the road.”

In the distance, the engine roared to life, and moments later the Slipstream peeled off down the runway. Its sleek frame glided across the asphalt and soared, slicing through the air life a knife.

_“ATC, this is Tracer, requesting permission for a fly-by.”_

“To what end, Lieutenant?” Morrison had had this back-and-forth with Lena numerous times before, all with the same conclusion.

 _“Got a lady in there I want to impress, sir.”_ The whole room could hear her smile.

Everyone hummed with laughter and glanced at Emily, knowing full-well she was the party in question.

“C’mon, let the kid have some fun,” Commander Reyes said with a bump to Morrison’s shoulder.

Morrison sighed, cracked a grin of his own, and acquiesced. “Permission granted.”

Seconds later—quickly enough to be quite obvious that Lena would have buzzed the tower anyway, even if her request had been denied a fiftieth time—the belly of the Slipstream nearly grazed the domed window of the control tower. The scream of the engine rocked the room, giving way to a din of collective laughter.

_“Davis, Aaron, talk to me—did I give her a jump?”_

“Gave us all a jump, you bloody madwoman!” Davis shouted to the microphone. Lena had closed the channel, but they knew she was laughing.

“Will would be so proud of her…” Emily whispered.

Aaron looked over at her, finding thoughtfulness in her smile. He threw his arm over her shoulder and gave her a friendly shake. “Yes, he would.”

“Tracer, this is Commander Reyes. All eyes are on you, kid—you are go to engage the Slipstream drive.”

“See you on the other side of history, Lena,” Captain Amari said.

_“Copy that, ATC. Engaging teleportation matrix.”_

Commander Reyes was right—every pair of eyes in the control tower, on the airfield, and likely anywhere else on the base with a monitor in it, was glued to the Slipstream and her pilot.

The air contorted and shifted shape around the fighter as it flew like a shot. Blue light crackled and streamed like lightning, and in the blink of an eye, it was gone.

The room was silent.

Any second, Lena would reappear before their eyes.

Any second now…

Nothing. Nothing, just long enough for panic to start setting in.

And then a twisted, flaming wreckage flickered back to reality, slamming into the runway like a meteor amidst a hail of superheated shrapnel.

“Search and Rescue to runway four, _now!”_ Morrison barked.

_“No!”_

The room turned, and Emily was gone, her friends hurling after her.

“Emily, wait, you can’t go down there!”

Emily ignored them. Ignored the twisting of her gut and the stinging in her eyes. Ignored the ache in her white knuckles and the pain of her fingernails digging into her palms. She burst out of the control tower and sprinted across the airfield.

 _“Lena!”_ she screamed.

“Em, stop!”

“Dammit, somebody stop her!” Morrison shouted from behind them.

_“Lena!”_

Davis and Aaron pounded after her, but she was too fast. Too driven. Too afraid.

Commander Reyes overtook them. He ran like a freight train. His boots were beginning to kick up chunks of asphalt. Emily was mere metres from the wreckage when he seized her.

“ _Let go of me!”_ she cried. _“I have to help her, I’ve got to get her out of there!”_

“You’ll die, Collingwood!” Reyes shouted back, fighting hard to pull her away. “Search and Rescue’s on the way! Let them help her!”

She was just about to elbow him in the jaw and shove him away, when four firetrucks came to a sudden stop around them. The crew piled out and spooled out firehoses, letting loose a torrent of water on the crashed jet.

The engine coughed and spat flames. The explosion felt like a gunshot to Emily, like a knife in her heart.

Behind her, a massive crowd had congregated. Crewmen and soldiers and responders and friends come to behold the horror. The nightmare.

The flames finally died, and the firefighters vaulted onto the fighter’s nose with crowbars in-hand. They dug the teeth into the canopy and heaved, forcing it to open so that they could rescue the pilot inside.

When the canopy popped, one of the responders instinctively reached towards the seat before hesitating, then halting completely.

“What is it?!” Morrison barked.

“There’s no pilot, sir! She’s gone!”

After that, there was silence. Only did it break when Emily’s heart did, and she let her tears fall freely. Reyes pulled her close to him and held her there, hoping to provide some comfort to her. He stared coldly at the wreckage, at the young girl that should have been there.

“She’s gone…” Davis said. “What does that mean? What does that mean, Gilly?”

“We lost her, mate,” Aaron wept. “We lost Lena.”

She was gone.

She was gone…

_Gone…_

_Gone…_

_Gone…_


	12. Familiar Feelings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Davis, Aaron, Graham and Emily each find a way to grieve; Emily is contacted by some old acquaintances.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Howdy folks! Another big ol' juicy update because I need tears for drink mix.

“Mate, have you seen Lieutenant MacGillvary around anywhere?” Davis asked as he donned his flight helmet.

“No, sir. Last I saw him was yesterday in the mess. Captain’s out tonight, too.”

 _Don’t do anything stupid, Gilly,_ Davis thought to himself with a sigh. _Nowadays, we’re stretched thin as it is._

“Thanks anyway,” he said. The canopy closed around him.

He taxied his Typhoon out onto the runway. The skies were clear tonight—a perfect night for a lap or two around Lossiemouth. On record, this was just an impromptu test flight. Truthfully, he just wanted some time to think, and flying cleared his head.

The nose lifted from the tarmac, and he was off into the cloudless night. He’d cruise the coastline and cut back once he hit the Highland border—that ought to give him plenty of time for introspection.

Was it time to throw in the towel, he wondered? The RAF had served Davis well, and he it. A fully-fledged pilot at twenty, and a distinguished, respected one a prolific nine years later. Piloting was all he’d dreamed of. All he’d wanted. And he was damn good at it, too.

But this? First Wes, and now Lena? Things had been hard, lately. Really hard.

He had experienced loss before. Co-pilots and friends, shot down and either dead or too wounded to fly again, and yet he marched on. He took it in stride. He remembered them for the men and women they were, and that was enough.

This was different.

So, what was it going to be? Soldier on like he had before, and risk losing Aaron? Or Emily? Or back out now, and work at a desk job for the rest of his life? No excitement, no pride in his work?

He wasn’t afraid of death, that wasn’t the problem. Not his own, at least. He was afraid of becoming jaded. Afraid of becoming bitter. Afraid of being alone.

A warning yanked him from his thoughts. A red light blinked at him, above the fuel gage, indicating that he was already on fumes. Bollocks, how had he forgotten to check that before he took off?

Things had gotten to him more than he had realized.

Time to head back. There would be more time for him to decide later.

 

***

 

Aaron needed a drink. Well, drinks.

The Gown was quiet tonight. Thank god for that, as he would much rather sulk than have some drunken weapon try and coax a smile out of him. Luckily, the bartender wasn’t some bloody caricature and didn’t pull that “absent-mindedly wipe down the bar while lending an ear to the woes of a world-weary patron” bullshit, either.

Aaron kept drinking, and the bartender kept pouring. Pleasant, silent symbiosis.

“MacGillvary.”

Until now.

He recognized the voice immediately, turning his head lackadaisically to find Captain Graham on approach. Aaron slowly rose from his seat to deliver a salute—it wouldn’t have been a graceful or professional one, but better than sitting there like a bump on a log—but Graham motioned for him to stop.

“I’m sick of salutes tonight,” he grumbled, taking a seat beside Aaron.

“Fancy yerself a drink, sir?” Aaron asked, taking a pull of his own.

“I’m sick of ‘sirs’ right now, as well, if you don’t mind,” he corrected. “And yes, I do. Three fingers of rye, please.”

The bartender heeded, and slid the tumbler across the counter into Graham’s palm, who thanked him with a nod of his head.

“Drinking your sorrows away?” he asked.

“You make it sound so romantic,” Aaron dryly replied. They shared a sigh and a drink, and sat in mildly-uncomfortable silence for a time before Aaron could stand it no longer. He enjoyed the silence before—now it smothered him.

“A lot of memories in this place,” he said, feeling compelled to say something. “I ever tell you that this is where Lena picked up ‘Tracer’?”

“Not in detail, no.”

“I was sittin’, right over there,” he said as he cast a gesture at the booth from his past, “gabbing away with Emily about her. Told her that I wanted her and ‘Tracer’ to be happy. Just thought of it right on the spot.”

“That’s rather sentimental of you, Aaron,” Graham admitted. “No offense.”

“None taken,” Aaron laughed. “Guess I just felt bad. About giving her such a hard time when she started out, I mean. Hell, I still fuckin’ do.”

Graham thought to inquire, but decided instead it would be best to let Aaron continue uninterrupted.

“I almost ruined her dream, ruined her life, just because I was in a fucking mood. I was scared, y’know. Scared that, deep down, she always resented me for it. Always hated me. I thought that, no matter what, there would always be a part of her that never really trusted me. I was too much of a stubborn fuckin’ arselick to tell her all that, and now she’s dead. Won’t get my chance now, will I?”

“No, you won’t, and you should have told her while you still had the chance,” Graham said as he stared absently at the shelves full of liquor behind the bar. “But we all have regrets like that, Aaron. I certainly do. And I can’t tell you that that part of her didn’t exist, because I don’t know for certain that it didn’t, but what I do know is that she loved you. Even if it happened to be in spite of something.”

Aaron thought on that. His eyes fell to the bottom of his glass, and he sighed heavily as he stared into the distorted reflection in the amber liquid.

“I’m tired, Cap. I’m tired of losing friends.”

Graham snorted back. “So am I.”

 

*******

Lossiemouth Airfield felt empty. The hangars bustled with crewmen and the skies buzzed with fighters, but still it felt like a void.

A void. Like the one sitting in the pit of Emily’s stomach. Like the one Lena was drifting in.

Is that where she was? In a void? Ceaseless, empty, and nebulous? Or was she just dead? Which one was better?

Emily sat silent, and unmoving, huddled in the middle of her bed, torturing herself with the thought. Was it better to hope that somewhere, somehow, Lena was still alive so that she may, by some contrivance of fate, come back to her? Or should she just consign her to death in hopes that it was more peaceful for her?

If she had the energy, Emily might have dashed the lamp on her side table against the wall. She hadn’t the capacity to even feel that kind of rage anymore, let alone act on it. All she felt was numbness. She would hear people come and go. They would approach her door, knock, and subsequently leave after a telling silence.

She didn’t see anyone. She didn’t _want_ to see anyone.

The phone in her room rang, insensitive towards her plight. She was the only one in the barracks provided the luxury when she arrived. Even then, it rarely sounded.

She let it ring. Upon the sixth, she was allowed her sullen silence once again. Until it went to voicemail. So _frustrating!_ She just wanted to be left alone.

 _“Hi, Miss Collingwood,”_ the voice began. Judging by his accent, the speaker was from East London, like Lena and Davis. _“I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for quite a bit, now. I’m an old friend of Lena’s, name’s Ozzy. I… I was hoping to talk to you about her.”_

Ozzy?

_Ozzy?!_

She sprung for the phone and yanked it off the receiver, nearly knocking herself in the head with the phone as she raised it to her ear. “Ozzy?! Ozzy, are you there?!”

She heard him jump. _“Blimey, you gave me a start! Yeah, yeah, I’m still here.”_

“I know you!” Emily said without thought. “Er, I know _of_ you, rather. Lena told me all about you.”

_“And me about you. The way she went on and on, I could probably paint a picture of you without ever having seen you.”_

Emily let out a laugh equal in fondness and melancholy at the thought. She grew quiet again, and solemn. “You know about the Slipstream, then.”

 _“I did,”_ he said, mirroring her tone. _“I watched a couple of the interviews that Morrison bloke had about it shortly after the reveal. I watched the address he gave, too. About the test flight.”_

She had seen it, as well. She watched the broadcast from the confines of her quarters at Lossiemouth Airfield, too dazed and despondent and furious at the world to attend it in person. She’d seen the look of loss on Commander Morrison’s face, hidden behind a trained public façade. He had danced this dance before, clearly.

“She was so excited, Ozzy,” Emily whispered. “You should have seen her face, getting into that plane… She was so ready to change the world. I don’t know what to do…”

She stifled a cry, sniffling and listening to the white noise over the line, awaiting a response. Something that would help.

 _“We could talk,”_ he finally suggested.

So they talked. For minutes, and then hours, and then days, they talked. Talked about Lena, about what she would say to one about the other. About how, when she was a girl, she would sit right at Ozzy’s side the moment she got home from school and watch in awe as he worked the day away. About how whenever she got excited, she’d zip around like madwoman, unable to finish a sentence before jumping to the next. About that crooked little grin of hers that seemed to never leave. About her silly hair and wild passion and her genuine desire to change the world for the better.

Every day at three o’clock. The phone would ring, Emily would pick it up, and they would talk. She was happy to have something routine like that. It gave her something to look forward to.

He was just about the only person she spoke to for two weeks. Hardly said a word to anyone else. She would note the looks of concern in Davis and Aaron’s eyes when she would pass them in the halls, and offer a small smile as if to try to vainly assure them that she was alright, but she said nothing, and offered little eye contact.

One day, when the phone rang for the umpteenth time, Emily glanced at her clock to find that it was only a little after noon. Funny, it was a little early for Ozzy to be calling her. She lifted it from the receiver and held it to her hear anyway, certain it was him.

“Hey, Ozzy.”

A short silence. _“Emily?”_

A woman’s voice. Strange. “Oh, I’m sorry. Yes, this is Emily. Who is this?”

 _“Doctor Angela Ziegler,”_ came the woman’s reply. _“Overwatch’s Chief Medical Officer.”_

Emily was taken aback at the mention of the organization. She had not thought much on it since the Slipstream.

“Oh, Doctor Ziegler,” she said, unsure of what to really say. She wasn’t surprised that Doctor Ziegler had managed to get a hold of her landline. She did work for Overwatch, after all. “I remember you, we met quite briefly. How are you?”

 _“I did not call you to talk to you about how_ I’m _feeling,”_ she said, soft and worrisome, a tone she had certainly adopted countless times. _“I was worried about how you might be coping with Lena’s passing.”_

Emily detected a subtle pause before the utterance of “passing,” as if Doctor Ziegler was unsure of what to deem it. Emily couldn’t rightly blame her. She herself still wrestled with what to say. She’d only been referring to it as a death for sake of convenience.

She felt a lump rise in her throat. A frightfully familiar feeling, these days. “I’ve been doing… Well, dreadfully, if I’m honest. An old friend of Lena’s got in contact with me a couple of weeks ago. He and I have been talking a lot. It helps. Otherwise…”

_“Of course. I’m happy to hear you’ve someone to share the burden with. I know it’s hard. Better than most.”_

“Thank you, Doctor Ziegler,” Emily said as her words began to choke her. “It means a lot to me that you took the time to call.”

 _“No trouble at all,”_ she said. Her voice alone was enough to calm the nerves. _“Likewise, if you ever feel the need to talk, I’m a phone call away. I’ll leave you my—”_

She was interrupted by the sound of shrieking on the other end of the line.

_“Emily? What’s wrong? Emily!”_

The phone had fallen to the floor. Emily’s hands were cupped over her mouth, shaking, along with the rest of her. Uncontrollably so. Doctor Ziegler’s shouts of concern fell on deaf ears.

Emily _saw something._ Something otherworldly, something akin to cosmic hands bending the brittle rules of reality. A ghost, a flicker of a person. First by the door, then by the foot of her bed in a fraction of a second. Some haunting sound resounded in her ears, as if it were no further than an inch away.

It was her name. The sound was her name. And the voice was Lena’s.

“Lena?!” Emily cried, tears streaming full-force. _“Lena?!”_

She could still hear Doctor Ziegler shouting for her from the floor, muffled by fear and confusion both. She scrambled for the phone, barely able to lift it to her ear with her trembling hands.

_“What’s happened, Emily?! Are you in danger?”_

“I saw Lena!” Emily cried. “I saw her, I-I heard her! She was calling my name! She was _screaming it!”_

 _“Tell me exactly what you saw,”_ Doctor Ziegler coolly requested.

“She was,” Emily gasped, “she was… flickering. She appeared at my door, and then at the foot of my bed. It was… supernatural, I don’t know how else to describe it! It was like l saw her ghost! She still had her pilot gear on, except it was warped, and _burned,_ and, and—”

Emily was flying into a frenzy. That she was on the phone with a doctor might have been described as divine intervention. _“Breathe, Emily, please. Deep, slow breaths. You need to calm down.”_

Emily shakily heeded, swallowing a cry. “I don’t know what to do, Doctor Ziegler. What does this mean?!”

The professional in Angela wanted to chalk it up as an intense anxiety-induced hallucination. Something medical, something she could diagnose, something that had a pragmatic explanation.

So why couldn’t she?

 _“I don’t know,”_ she began again, _“but I promise you I’ll find out. I’ll call again soon. Until then, if this happens again, write it down immediately. Date, time, place, everything. Take care, Emily.”_

Emily struggled to whisper, “You too,” into the phone before slamming it onto the receiver.

She pressed her back against the backboard of her bed and tucked her knees to her chest. She scanned the room for any trace of… Whatever Lena was.

She must have been losing it. Fourteen days of self-induced confinement; fourteen days of speaking to one person and one person only; fourteen days of grief-fueled speculation from sunrise to sunset. She was losing it, she _had_ to be.

Only, she herself didn’t believe it. Couldn’t, not even if she forced herself to. Whether it was a blessing or a curse, she wasn’t sure, but Lena was alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Getting back into the swing of things, folks! I'm happy and excited to be writing again, and I'll be starting college next week to learn how to do this exact thing much better. I don't know what that will mean in terms of frequency of content updates, but I hope to get more persistent with them regardless. Speaking of which, I'll be updating a one-off of mine and fleshing it out into a full story very soon. I wonder which one it'll be...
> 
> *cough* main character *cough* Widowmaker *cough*

**Author's Note:**

> I'm gonna do my best to remain faithful to the Lovecraftian horror that is Overwatch's absurd bullshit timeline whenever the need for it arises for story purposes.
> 
> Cue me immediately fucking up something in the timeline.


End file.
